TOYOTA Motor Philippines Corp. (TMP) on Wednesday inaugurated its 1-megawatt (MW) solar array estimated to reduce the firm’s carbon emission by 790 tons annually.
Situated in the Toyota Special Economic Zone in Santa Rosa, Laguna, the solar array is one of TMP’s initiatives to trim its carbon footprint, as well as mitigate the effects of climate change. These objectives are envisioned under the Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050.
The solar array is penciled to supply 4 percent of TMP’s annual power requirements. As a result, it will be able to cut down the firm’s carbon emission by 12 kilogram for every vehicle produced, or around 790 tons of carbon annually, resulting to energy cost savings of around P10 million per year.
The solar array is among the first batch of projects that qualifies under the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) signed by the Philippine and Japanese governments last year. The JCM is one of Tokyo’s ways to address climate change by funding leading low-carbon technologies and systems in developing economies and purchasing the carbon credit from the project. The Japanese government will subsidize TMP under the JCM. It will cover 30 percent of the total cost of solar panels, inverters and monitoring devices.
Toyota also partnered with Spectrum, a subsidiary of the Manila Electric Co., which provided technical expertise and installed the solar array. The power facility consists of 2,640 pieces of 385-watt peak capacity photovoltaic panels and 22 units of 42-kilowatt Huawei inverters.
In a speech at the inauguration, TMP President Satoru Suzuki said the project came a long way since its conceptualization in 2016. He added the solar array project came in no better time, as the TMP is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
“While attaining zero carbon footprint in business operations is a great challenge, which other people even consider impossible, we, at Toyota, will continue to challenge ourselves in making our impossible, possible. I believe that this is the only way for us to make a contribution towards a sustainable future,” Suzuki said.