The Department of Energy (DOE) granted SunAsia Energy Inc. and Blueleaf Energy the contract to build and operate the world’s largest floating solar project in the Philippines. The solar-on-water project will have a cumulative capacity of over 610.5 megawatts (MW).

The contract is part of the first set of the Department of Energy’s (DoE) first set of Solar Energy Operating Contracts (SEOCs) for a total of 1.3 gigawatts (GW) in floating solar projects.

SunAsia Energy and Blueleaf Energy, which signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with the government in September, are jointly developing the large-scale floating solar facility on Laguna Lake, spanning the cities of Calamba, Sta. Rosa and Cabuyao, and the towns of Bay and Victoria.

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“As an active investor in sustainable infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region, we believe the Philippines holds great potential to add significant renewable energy capacity to its energy mix and at the same time deliver green energy at an affordable cost compared to fossil fuels,” said Raghuram Natarajan, CEO of Blueleaf Energy.

Natarajan also said Blueleaf would push for cooperation among public and private stakeholders to ensure the successful development of the project.

Green jobs

This will “not only contribute to the country’s RE goals, but also spark green job growth locally during construction and the long-term operations of these floating solar projects, enable local supply chains through the manufacturing of critical components and bring about notable benefits to the local community,” Natarajan said.

The SEOC is a testament to the viability of this emerging technology. Tetchi Capellan, president and CEO of SunAsia Energy, noted that “land use is becoming a big issue for renewables.”

“People are worrying about competing uses of land, and in some markets, you might struggle to find land,” Capellan said. “There is a strong incentive to build on water as the Philippines gears up for an ambitious 46 GW solar energy installations in 2040 and at the same time, increase power supply in the country.”

She said this first 610MW floating solar project “is our collective legacy, our immeasurable contribution to the body of knowledge in the renewable energy space and to the growing solar energy installations worldwide.”

Solar-on-water

Since 2019, SunAsia Energy has been operating a testbed on Laguna Lake to study the behavior of waves, the movement of wind, the intensity of the sun, and the variability of the temperature in the locality. The wealth of experience has contributed to the growing knowledge of floating solar panels on the lake.

SunAsia Energy further explained that like land-based systems, floating solar panels generate electricity from the sun’s rays. But the bodies of water that these farms rest on also help to cool the panels, allowing them to be more efficient than terrestrial solar, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

Solar-on-water will definitely boost clean power as the world races to cut carbon emissions. Massive solar farms can now be found atop bodies of water in South Korea, Japan, China, Thailand, Singapore, and Portugal.

Developing solar-on-water projects, in the country’s largest lake, will help achieve not only the government’s ambitious decarbonization target but also much needed power to run industries, light homes, and energize cities.

In the last two decades, Blueleaf Energy has developed and built almost 2 GW of solar capacity across the globe, including 250 MW in the Philippines. It currently has over 7 GW of solar, wind and storage projects project pipeline across the Asia Pacific region.

SunAsia Energy, a developer of sustainable solar energy in the country, has since its inception in 2013 partnered with various entities to develop solar projects including the 60 MWp Toledo solar project in Cebu and the 20 MWp Dagupan solar project in Pangasinan.

Image from SunAsia Energy Inc Facebook page