SN Aboitiz switches on 1st floating solar project

RAMON, Isabela, Philippines — SN Aboitiz Power Group (SNAP), the joint venture of SN Power of Norway and Aboitiz Power Corp., switched on its first 200-kilowatt (kw) floating solar project over Magat Dam yesterday, with plans to expand it with another 20 megawatts (MW) once stress tests to check its commercial viability are successful.

The company, through SNAP-Magat Inc., invested over $400,000 or nearly P24 million, for the facility placed over a 2,500-square meter area over the Magat reservoir.

SNAP president and CEO Joseph Yu said the 200-kw facility would provide internal power to SNAP-Magat’s facilities.

“The 200-kw plant supplies most of out internal household already, like the control room, all the air-conditioning, lights that Magat needs to run,” he said.

For the pilot project, SNAP partnered with Ocean Sun, a Norwegian floating solar technology provider.

The floating solar facility is made up of 720 solar panels on a circular installation – whose design is inspired by the Amazon water lily – held in place by four mooring systems.

A 10-month stress test will be conducted on the pilot project to ensure that the facility can withstand massive inflows and strong typhoons.

If successful, SNAP said it would look into scaling up the project so that the power generated may contribute to its renewable energy capacity and to the country’s energy security.

“There’s going to be more to come. Together with our partner, we’ll bring in innovative power solutions. We are very committed to renewable energy. With the launch of this floating solar project...hopefully we will be able to scale this up a little bit more,” AboitizPower president Erramon Aboitiz said.

For the expansion project, SNAP-Magat is targeting another 20 mw, Yu said.

“The plan is, over the next six months, we will go through the wet season, the rains and the storms and we’ll see how it reacts to the waves and the rain. We’d like to see strong winds to see what it can withstand,” he said.

Parallel the stress test, SNAP is working on getting the costs down for the commercial floating solar plant, with a target of below $1 million per MW for the expansion.

“We still have a lot of homework to do. There’s the technical side, we need to work on the cost side, commercial side, financial side to make this viable. We have several teams all working to push it to a decision point, hopefully before the end of the year,” Yu said.

This is the first non-hydro renewable energy (RE) project of SNAP, which is looking at other renewables and complementary technologies to expand its portfolio.