Leyte's 2nd solar power farm opened

PALO, LEYTE, Philippines — A 50-megawatt solar power plant was inaugurated Thursday morning at a 72-hectare site at Barangay Castilla in this town, after its construction started in December last year.

The power facility, the second solar farm built in Eastern Visayas after the one in Ormoc City, is now ready for linking to the power grid of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines this Sunday, according to its producer Sulu Electric Power and Light (Philippines) Corp (SEPALCO).

Now, with three power sources of NGCP in Leyte, together with the geothermal plant at Tongonan in Kananga town of Leyte, there would be enough providers for the energy needs of Leyte and Cebu, the company added.

Frank Huang, the Taiwanese investor of SEPALCO, said the initial investment of the solar farm in Palo had reached US$90 million, including US$5.5 million in import taxes paid to the government.

The new solar plant consisted of 188,000 solar panels built on a site located about eight kilometers inward from the main highway. "What we want to achieve is the green society in the Philippines with this green energy," said Huang, also a founding member of the humanitarian group Tzu Chi Taiwan Buddhist Foundation.

Huang then hinted the Taiwan investors' plan to increase investment for a hundred megawatts more in this solar energy group with the help of partner investors from Germany and Spain, being pioneers in solar energy production. He said their contract with the Department of Energy is 20 years, extendable to another five years.

Lawyer Ben Castillo, SEPALCO president, said the solar farm was designed to withstand 250-kilometer per hour wind speed, conceptualized as such based on the aftermath of the Yolanda devastation in 2013.

The local contractor, Melekon Contractors Inc. which complied with the two-month construction deadline, had anchored the pipes five meters deep and lowered the panels' height by 37 centimeters, compared to the 90 cm high panels the Taiwanese investors built in other Asian countries, added Huang.

Castillo said the solar power system's long-term benefits on the environment will eventually translate into lowering of the power rate. As such, SAPELCO pegs the energy price sold to NGCP at P8.69 per kilowatt-hour constant.

In operating the solar facility, Castillo said the Leyte provincial government and the municipal governments of Leyte town and Palo would be providing their respective equitable share, as mandated by the Renewable Energy Law.

For the shrubs that were uprooted during the earthworks, SEPALCO had committed to the reforestation program of the government, and had donated at least 4,000 seedlings, which number was more than what the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources had tasked the company to do, said Castillo.

SEPALCO further planned to acquire through lawful means wider expanse of the land for the second phase of the solar energy project, he said.

Palo Mayor Remedios Petilla, for her part, was optimistic that the project will benefit the province and the entire counrty in terms of reliable and cheaper power supply.

Archdiocese of Palo Vicar-General Msgr. Rex Ramirez and archdiocesean spokesperson Father Chris Militante, who represented Archbishop John Du, blessed the SEPALCO office, solar energy farm and power transmission equipment. (FREEMAN)