SNAP considers expanding floating solar project in Magat
RENEWABLE energy company SN Aboitiz Power (SNAP) is planning to scale up its 200-kilowatt floating solar power project in Magat dam, its top official said last week.
Joseph S. Yu, president and chief executive officer of SNAP, told BusinessWorld that the company is upgrading its solar panels to ones with higher efficiency and newer design.
“We are currently upgrading the panels to a newer design. In the meantime, we still have yet to see the system being challenged by a strong typhoon that would allow us to develop the technical resiliency aspect of the system,” Mr. Yu said.
He said that at present, the company is in coordination with the National Irrigation Administration and National Grid Corp. of the Philippines to work out the access to the reservoir and the transmission units.
“We have a service contract to upscale it to around 67-megawatts,” he added.
“Numbers are changing, almost every time so it is hard to pin it down, but [the] rule of thumb I am assuming [is] that it would be a million dollars per megawatt,” Mr. Yu said.
In 2019, SNAP said it invested around P24 million in the floating solar project in Ramon, Isabela, which consisted of 720 solar panels. The facility is situated over a 2,500-square meter area in the Magat reservoir.
SNAP is a joint venture between SN Power of Norway and Aboitiz Power Corp. — Ashley Erika O. Jose
