The Philippines will build a 1.3GW floating photovoltaic power station!

Sun Asia Energy, a solar design, procurement and construction company, will build a 1.3GW floating photovoltaic project on Laguna Lake, the largest lake in the Philippines.

In a tender held by the Laguna Lake Development Authority, Sun Asia Energy and its investment partner BlueLeaf Energy were the winning bidders for 10 lake surface blocks totaling 1,000 hectares. BlueLeaf Energy said that by signing the lake lease agreement, the projects have acquired rights such as environmental compliance certificates.

It is expected that the project will start construction in 2025 and gradually put into operation in 2026-2030.

Sun Asia Energy said in a release: "Land use is becoming a big issue for renewable energy, especially solar projects. Currently, project developers are struggling to find land for solar farms. In most cases, delays in solar projects Often this is due to late issuance of property consolidation and land conversion permits. As a result, developers have an incentive to build projects on the water."

Laguna Lake covers an area of 90,000 hectares, with about 2% of the area proposed for the project. Earlier this month, international energy platform ACEN signed an agreement with LLDA to develop 1GW of floating PV in the area and on the lake.

These advances are pushing the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia further into global hotbeds for floating PV, as Wood Mackenzie predicted in May. As the price of this technology continues to decline, it is expected that by 2031, five of the top ten floating PV markets will be Southeast Asian markets. PV Tech Premium discussed technological developments in floating photovoltaics earlier this year.

BlueLeaf is a subsidiary of Green Investment Group, and the company and SunAsia originally announced their cooperation in 2021 to develop a 1.25GW solar photovoltaic power generation project in the Philippines. Floating PV projects were not specifically designated at the time.