SG firm’s 74-MW solar farm up and running in CamSur by Q2 2024

MANILA  -Singapore-based renewable energy player Nexif Ratch Energy Investments Pte. Ltd. has started developing a 74-megawatt peak (MWp) solar farm in Camarines Sur, which is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2024 at a cost of more than $50 million.

Nexif Ratch Energy, a joint venture between Singapore’s Nexif Energy and Thailand’s Ratch Group, announced the financial closing for the $50-million (P2.8-billion) solar facility being developed by its local subsidiary, Calabanga Renewable Energy Inc. in Calabanga town.

Security Bank Corp. as lender and SB Capital Investment Corp. as lead arranger will finance 70 percent of the project cost on a limited recourse basis.

In a statement on Monday, Nexif Ratch Energy said the ground-mount solar photovoltaic plant would sell 85 percent of generated energy through a power supply agreement with AP Renewables Inc. and Adventenergy Inc., both subsidiaries of AboitizPower Corp.

The remainder will be sold to the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, the central marketplace for trading electricity, or through direct short-term contracts with commercial and large end-users.

A consortium of PowerChina Huadong Engineering Co. Ltd. and PowerChina Philippines Corp. clinched the lump-sum turn-key engineering, procurement and construction contract for the solar plant.

PowerChina Philippines will conduct operations and maintenance activities for the initial two years of commercial operations before transitioning to the in-house team of Nexif Ratch Energy.

“With this project now moving to construction, it builds on our under construction/operating portfolio, which already comprises a hydro power project in Vietnam, one stage of which is operating and the other stage that is under construction,” Nexif Ratch Energy director Sakarin Tangkavachiranon said.

“We are expecting that this financial close will soon be followed by others this year, with development and financing of projects in Vietnam and [the] Philippines gathering pace,” Tangkavachiranon added.

Nexif Ratch Energy chair Surender Singh said the company was making “rapid progress” to attain financial close for its 150-MWp NPSI solar project in Negros later this year.

—Jordeene B. Lagare INQ

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