Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (TMPC) inaugurated its 1-megawatt (MW) Solar Array at its assembly plant in Laguna.
In a statement on Wednesday, the company said this was one of TMP’s major initiatives to minimize its carbon footprint and help mitigate the effects of climate change, based on the global Toyota Environmental Challenge (TEC) 2050.
TMP president Satoru Suzuki said the project was conceptualized in 2016, noting that the inauguration capped the company’s 30th anniversary milestone.
“I am proud to say that, so far, this renewable energy installation is the biggest among all car manufacturers in the Philippines,” he said.
TMP’s 1-MW Solar Array project is among the first batch of projects implemented after the Philippine government signed the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) partnership with the Japanese government last year.
The JCM is one of Japanese government’s ways to effectively address climate change by funding leading low-carbon technologies and systems in developing countries and purchasing the carbon credit from the project.
Under the JCM, the Japanese government will provide a subsidy to TMP, which will cover 30 percent of the total cost of solar panels, inverters and monitoring device.
TMP also partnered with Spectrum, a Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) subsidiary, which provided technical expertise and carried out the solar array installation on a 10,000-square-meter area at the roof of TMP’s Material Handling Operations (MHO) building.
TMP’s 1-MW facility consists of 2,640 pieces of 385Wp photovoltaic (PV) panels and 22 units of 42kW Huawei inverters. TMP did not provide any investment cost.
With the solar array supplying 4 percent of the company’s yearly electricity requirements, TMP said it would be able to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 12 kilograms for every vehicle produced or around 790 tons per year.
It is also estimated to generate energy savings of about P10 million yearly.
Toyota is the country’s auto industry leader with a manufacturing plant in Santa Rosa, Laguna. —ROY C. CANIVEL