PetroEnergy gets guaranteed rate for solar plant

A unit of PetroEnergy Resources Corp. (Perc) has secured a regulatory approval to operate a 50-megawatt (MW) solar power plant in Tarlac via an incentives scheme.

Perc disclosed Wednesday the Energy Regulatory Commission approved the certificate of compliance as a Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) eligible power plant of PetroSolar Corp.’s Tarlac-1 Solar Power Project.

Under the FIT scheme, power plant operators are given guaranteed returns, in the form of uniform charges to end-consumers, to make their projects viable.

Perc president Milagros V. Reyes said the approval meant the power plant would get a guaranteed payment of P8.69 per kilowatt-hour for 20 years beginning Feb. 10, 2016.

“ERC’s [certificate of compliance] approval for our Tarlac-1 solar facility [is a testament] to our satisfactory compliance to all technical, organizational, legal and financial requirements to operate a solar power plant,” Reyes said.

She said these incentives, along with FIT payments for its 36-MW Nabas wind facility and the energy supply contract for its 20-MW Maibarara-1 geothermal plant, assured a “revenue streams boost” for its Gabon oil production operations in West Africa.

The Tarlac-1 solar facility is seated on a 55-hectare industrial land within the Central Technopark in Tarlac City.

This is the first solar facility of PetroSolar, a joint venture of PetroGreen Energy Corp. (Pgec), which owns a 56-percent stake, and EEI Power Corp., which holds the remaining 44 percent. Pgec is the renewable energy holding company of Perc.

“Our Tarlac-1 solar project attained 80 percent electro-mechanical completion on Dec. 23, 2015 and started delivery of power to the Luzon grid on Jan. 27, 2016, ahead of the March 15, 2016 deadline for the 500 MW solar FIT allocation,” said PGEC COO Francisco G. Delfin Jr.