RENEWABLE ENERGY company SN Aboitiz Power Group (SNAP) is looking to integrate solar power into its portfolio by the end of the decade.
“Our goal is to add 1,000 megawatts by 2030. The sooner the better, of course, by phase,” SNAP President and Chief Executive Officer Joseph S. Yu said in a media roundtable last week.
“But everybody knows it’s not easy. You have to find a land, use something that you can convert, it has to have good irradiation and then you have to have access to transmission lines so it’s a tough challenge,” he added.
The company is currently conducting a feasibility study to confirm the viability of its 200-kilowatt floating solar project, which was placed over a portion of the Magat reservoir in Isabela.
“There were a lot of growing pains but we’ve sorted it all out so we’re confident with the technology, but we still need to make sure that we can sell the output when we build it,” Mr. Yu said.
In 2019, SNAP said it had invested around P24 million for the pilot floating solar project, which consisted of 720 solar panels. The facility is situated over a 2,500-square-meter area in the Magat reservoir.
“We would look at more solar so we would look at both floating and land-based. We’re joining the race for that one. But we’re looking at it because we want to integrate the solar output into our portfolio. We feel that the capacity of solar PV (photovoltaic) is highly complementary to the profile of hydropower plant,” he added.
SNAP is a joint venture of Scatec and Aboitiz Power Corp. It owns and operates the 112.5-MW Ambuklao and 140-MW Binga hydroelectric power plants in Benguet; the 388-MW Magat hydroelectric power plant on the border of Isabela and Ifugao; and the 8.5-MW Maris hydroelectric power plant in Isabela.
Meanwhile, the company is targeting the operations of its 24-MW Magat battery energy storage system project (BESS) before the end of the year.
“You have a single location with four different technologies. We actually see all these things working together as a hybrid and we think there’s room to optimize,” Mr. Yu said, referring to the company’s impounding and run-of-river hydropower plants, BESS, and solar power projects. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera
