Philippines

It’s Gamesa’s first Philippine contract.

Project completion slated in five years’ time.

Plant part of the solution to the city’s power crisis.

Solar farm will be located in Negros Occidental province. German solar firm Conergy AG has won a contract from San Carlos Solar Energy to build a 22 MW solar power plant in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental in the Visayas region south of Manila.

Construction could begin by mid-2014. London-based Advanced Plasma Power Ltd., a waste-to-energy developer, intends to build a US$323 million waste-to-energy power plant at a still undetermined location. The plant will have a capacity of 60 MW. The company is negotiating with the operator of a landfill site.

This US$3.7 million project will be completed in three years. Bank of the Philippine Islands will enter into a build-operate-transfer agreement for the installation of solar panels at 400 of its branches nationwide. It will partner with Solarus Partners for the solar project, the first of its kind by a Philippine bank. Its branches at Ayala Avenue in Makati City and the town of Cainta in Metro Manila have been equipped with 5 KW solar panels. BPI expects to have half its branches fitted with solar panels that can produce 20 KW of power or 40% of its monthly electricity consumption.

Five-year project will cost US$1.25 billion. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines will start by improving the transmission facilities of the 75 MW Ambuklao hydroelectric dam built in 1950 and the 132 MW Binga hydroelectric dam built in 1956. NGCP said the transmission development plan plans to increase the amount of electricity distributed by the Luzon grid from 7,969 MW in 2011 to 11,165 MW in 2021. Metro Manila consumes 74% or 8,305 MW of the 11,165 MW of electricity channeled daily through the Luzon grid. The plan intends to modernize the high-power voltage lines of the Ambuklao and Binga dams and the transmission lines connecting Binga to San Manuel, Pangasinan, and to La Trinidad, Benguet.

Region will be comparable to China and India. The International Energy Agency said people may be talking about Southeast Asia as the next emerging market for energy, just as people have been talking about China and India. has a combined population of about 600 million. Together, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China and India are really gradually shifting the center of gravity of the global energy market towards Asia, IEA said. ASEAN economies are expected to diversify their energy sources to include more clean energies with natural gas as an important option.

Kepco, Mitsui and Mitsubishi studying opportunities.

Produces 38.8% of the country’s electricity.

Job is worth over US$102 million.

Launch was on 26 Sept.

Project supports recycling business.

Project will cost US$700 million.

Will exceed 5 MW from 2 MW.

Bandung 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement, Sukarno, Nehru, Tito, Nasser, etc. – like leaves from a sepia photo album faded as time moved on.  Yet in the interconnected global economy where international investments and financing routinely ignores borders, is there room to dust off the “South-South” paradigm for energy development?  Especially in a sector such as renewable energy where the challenge and risk profiles are similar along a “South-South” axis, there may yet be some juice left in that old model.