CLEANTECH Global Renewables is eyeing to spend as much as $1.4 billion to develop 600 megawatts (MW) of solar and hydropower projects in the next five years.
Of the amount, $750 million to $1 billion would be earmarked to construct 500 MW of solar-power projects within the same period, company president Aboy Castro said.
“The cost of solar is going down. I don’t know what that cost will be in the next five years, but rough estimate is $1.5 million to $2 million per MW. So, that is somewhere [between] $750 million and $1 billion for our solar projects,” Castro said.
The company had just energized its 15- MW solar farm in San Idelfonso, Bulacan, on March 12. The project consists of 86,400 solar-power panels that could supply power to 9,750 households.
CleanTech’s first solar project costs $31 million, and Castro said this was financed through 100-percent equity. He added that “up to 40 percent” is held by its foreign investor, Armstrong Asset Management. The remaining 60 percent is a “combination of local investors, which include CleanTech Global and some other local investors,” Castro said.
This project, he said, was recently given a certificate of endorsement for the feed-in tariff. The company has plans to expand its existing solar farm to 85 MW more, also in Bulacan, within the year.
Castro said the remaining 400 MW of solar-power projects would be mostly located in Northern Luzon. “We have a couple of smaller projects in [the] Visayas and Mindanao, as well,” he added.
For hydropower projects, CleanTech is setting aside $4 million per MW, or roughly $300 million to $400 million, to finance its planned 100-MW hydropower projects.
Construction can take 12 to 18 months, Castro said, adding that the company’s hydro projects will be divided into two. “These are the run-of-river and low-end hydro,” Castro said. “We have a couple of projects breaking ground already.”