SPNEC to break ground on ‘world’s largest solar farm’ this year

MANILA  -Leandro Leviste’s SP New Energy Corp. (SPNEC) will break ground in the latter part of the year for what is slated to be the world’s largest solar farm after securing more than 3,000 hectares (ha) of land for the project.

Leviste, who founded SPNEC in 2013, told reporters on Thursday that the 3.5-gigawatt (GW) solar farm in the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Bulacan must be operational by 2026 as part of SPNEC’s goal to expand its energy portfolio capacity to 10 GW in the coming years.

In January, SPNEC announced plans to secure land in the two provinces after securing off-take agreements for its solar projects.

Once operational, the project would be the largest of its kind in the Philippines, and even larger than the total grid-connected solar projects in the country at over 1.3 GW as of end-2021.

The Nueva Ecija project will also serve as an expansion of SPNEC’s other solar farms in the area with a potential capacity of 500 megawatts (MW).

SPNEC in March received P2.8 billion out of the stock rights offers it issued, and this would be used to partially fund the Nueva Ecija project.

Manuel Pangilinan’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) also recently invested P2 billion in SPNEC to fund the land acquisition.

Metro Pacific invests P2B in Leandro Leviste’s solar power firm

The company previously announced that it intended to spend $7 billion (P400 billion) to achieve its 10-GW expansion plan based on the industry standard cost of $700,000 per MW.

“Despite how daunting P400 billion is, the key step is the first P2 billion from MPIC,” Leviste said.

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