Spnec fast-tracks ₱200B solar farm in Central Luzon | Hacker News Reader

Spnec fast-tracks ₱200B solar farm in Central Luzon

businessmirror.com.ph

90 pointsdoener58 comments

200 billion PHP is 3.58 billion USD. The farm is 3500 MW and has 4000 MWh of battery storage. As of today 1 Wp (peak watt) of mainstream solar panels costs about 0.16 USD [1], and 1 kWh of li-ion battery costs about 140 USD [2]. Which means the panels alone cost 560M USD, and the batteries also cost 560M USD, so combined they represent 31% of the total 3.58B USD budget. It seems to be not very cost-efficient, as the overhead for everything else (2.46B USD) is quite large: inverters, mounting hardware, grid connection, installation, inspection, etc.

Edit: I was basing my "not very cost-efficient" remark on the fact that this solar plant is basically $1.00/W however the best utility-scale solar plants achieve about $0.80/W, or 20% less. However I forgot to account for the fact this plant has batteries, so a higher overhead is expected. So, after all, the capex is in line with what I'd expect.

[1] https://www.pvxchange.com/Price-Index [2] https://about.bnef.com/blog/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-...

Wouldn't the land / lease on land be a big cost?

It seems these are going onto existing pastureland, which should be able to continue present production.

The Philippines has a great deal of sheltered water that could host floatovoltaic installations that can opoerate more efficiently than on land.

One of the great advantages of solar is that many small installations, close to where power is needed, are better than one big one. We may hope they are taking advantage of this capability, too often ignored.

You can still have sheep grazing under solar panels! They keep the grass down and they're happy about the shade.

It's a win for all sides and I've seen it used extensively here in Germany.

Doesn't grass need photosynthesis?

Grass doesn't need direct sunlight to grow. Since the sun moves, only a very small percentage of the area is in shadow all day anyways.

I am passing by a solar farm as I am writing this. And The grass below and beside the panels looks the same.

Here is a pic I found on the internet:

https://cals.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Sheep-Solar...

But there is no such thing as a free lunch, although the grass will transpire less water in a solar farm, it also doesn't grow as fast.

Maybe. Maybe!

But you get a ton of electricity

There's a lot of things that go into plant yield, and it's not just as simple as "less sunlight, less grass".

Most plants can use only a few hours of direct sunlight before they run out of stuff to photosynthesize out of. They endure the rest of the day trying not to get dehydrated, and spend the night stockpiling raw materials to process next day.

Cereal crops are bred to be able to use more sun than most plants; most chase other goals than the big seeds we select for.

There is sufficient indirect light underneath ground mount solar that many plants can grow happily. Lots of plants prefer shade over direct sun.

This is also why bifacial solar panels are so much more efficient.

> One of the great advantages of solar is that many small installations, close to where power is needed, are better than one big one.

I'm sure it's definitely true when using the same technology in both sides of the comparison (solar panels), but is it so cut and dry compared to current and/or future iterations of alternatives like this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower

The cost decreases in solar panels have basically killed all the more complicated technologies in favor of Really Big Photodiode.

True. People doing solar concentrators have pivoted to supplying process heat, which can be collected most efficiently that way. It must be said, we use a lot of process heat. Heating people's houses would be another good use of the technology in places where the trenches and plumbing are cheap enough.

₱200B is 11.7 billion USD. That’s an insane investment in the Philippines, which has a GDP only 35 times bigger.

Wow. 1/20th of their grid volume.

I suppose the cost per kw/h really hit a tipping point for them.

That, plus they don't have energy sovereignty. Similar to China, they want energy sovereignty and want to derisk from global political instability. So they're turning to renewables. It's smart. The cost curve pushed the decision over the edge.

Also being near the equator, the sun is stable. Countries like Denmark who are far from the equator will probably keep pursuing wind more aggressively than solar, unless the solar cost curve continues down.

This is correct. I am from the Philippines, we have only two types of seasons, sunny and rainy.

But we also have several wind farms operating since early 2000s.

> I am from the Philippines, we have only two types of seasons, sunny and rainy.

There's a buried third in there: "typhoon season"[1].

I do wonder how they intend to both lean into and protect such a massive, fragile investment when all it'll take is the debris from a single tropical storm to wreck some serious infrastructure carnage, let alone a full-blown super typhoon.

[1] https://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/climate/tropical-cyclone-info...

PV panels will be protected the same way as buildings. Not much difference there. If you can build a house, you can build a PV-farm.

Im not aware of any houses with flat structures sticking over the roof being successfully protected from hurricanes.

Both are popular in Denmark. Denmark has about 3.5GW of solar, mostly on people's houses. So, about the same as this project is installing. Of course the grid is dominated by wind power. Especially offshore wind.

Being further north makes a little bit of difference but not as much as people think. Winters are darker, obviously. So, that means solar isn't great then. But summers have much more daylight. Those long summer days are awesome for solar energy. From early morning until late at night basically. And obviously, Danish consumers like cutting a bit off their electricity bills just like people elsewhere.

Another issue is the angle of the sun. The light loses some energy having to pass through more of our atmosphere compared to blasting straight down at the equator. But otherwise, the difference in distance to the sun is negligible.

And of course heat pumps are pretty popular in Denmark as well. As are EVs. People that have those, would benefit a lot from solar panels.

Is there seasonal storage in Denmark, so excess solar in summer can be used in the winter?

On the other hand, still much cheaper both to build and operate than the equivalent in conventional power plants. But I do wonder where all that money is coming from. Foreign investors?

Seems it was funded by the IPO of "SP New energy Corp"

> Funded by proceeds from its P2.7-billion initial public offering, the first 50 megawatts are targeted to start delivering power to the grid by the end of 2022, driving profitability for the firm - https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/money/companies/815990/spnec...

> Mr Leandro Leviste, 28, will seek to raise as much as 2.7 billion pesos (S$74 million) by selling shares in Solar Philippines Nueva Ecija, a unit of his Solar Philippines Power Project Holdings. The funds will go towards constructing the first phase of a 500MW plant in a province about 130km north of Manila - https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/a-28-year-old-...

Interesting enough, seems the founder initially got the funds by selling their Tesla and SolarCity shares:

> Mr Leviste founded Solar Philippines in 2013 after selling the shares in Tesla Motors and SolarCity he bought while attending Yale University in the United States - https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/a-28-year-old-...

SPNEC is owned (bought it from Leviste) by MVP which also owned several digital, electric, mining, hospital companies here. Totally rich nonetheless.

Yeah, I imagined. Also guessing Leandro Leviste had help to acquire their shares in the first place, as it's not super common for people to have funds available for stocks when they join university, unless someone help them afford it.

He’s the son of one of the largest political clans here too. If you know what I mean.

From Batangas right?

I believe so.

That accounts for 2.7 billion pesos - a good start but hardly a dent in the 200 billion figure.

200B philippine peso is, thank God, 3.58B USD, not 11.7. Looks dirt cheap for 3.5GW and a lot of storage too.

$1k USD and you get 1KW of solar and storage. I don't know how this compares to alternative grid-scale solutions over a ~15-25 year lifetime but that's ballpark how much you'd pay for retail solar without the storage.

1kwp panels cost <200 USD at the moment.

So $1k total including installation labour and maintenance seems reasonable

Sure, but it’s not like they mount themselves on a frame, or wire themselves in.

Anyone have an idea of how existing solar farms in the Philippines have weathered typhoon season over the past decade?

The country is a proverbial magnet for typhoons, and it seems like a major disaster strikes every year; wiki[1] claims half of the top 10 deadliest were within the past 2 decades, and the top 10 most destructive were all in the past 15 years!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoons_in_the_Philippines

I lived here my whole life, I experienced 2 major typhoons (almost 40 years old). Not sure if major disaster strikes every year is accurate.

Flooding is the primary concern for us during typhoons, majority of the lands here are agricultural and mountainous. So debris are not a concern.

Solar arrays are low to the ground and comparatively sturdy relative to construction like housing. Are they particularly at risk? This seems like an argument you could apply to any industry in the coastal tropics. Yet there is industry in the coastal tropics nonetheless.

The Philippines are beautiful, though truly all the small motor vehicles going 15-20MPh everywhere are a bit ridiculous and especially in Manila choke out the air.

It's awesome they are building solar. Soon hopefully lots of small electrics or even more bicycles take the place of the jeepneys, trikes, and motorbikes. The motor traffic was about the worst part of being there. The countryside is beautiful.

The motor traffic will still be bad, just less polluting.

Are there solar farms that are utilizing the space underneath the panels for any productive use, like growing plants that need shade?

I think not in large scale yet, but there are experiments.

> "Solar panels in a field will necessarily cast a shadow. This can be beneficial for some crops, for others not. In Northern Europe, agrivoltaic production seems to be suitable for crops such as onions, grains, potatoes, and root vegetables, perhaps also strawberries or raspberries. In areas where the sunshine is more intense, solar panels can reduce evaporation and lay the foundation for higher production than otherwise. In southern Europe, solar panels can probably be combined with vines or olive bushes," says van der Pouw.

https://www.statkraft.com/newsroom/news-and-stories/2022/agr...

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/14/1054942590/solar-energy-color...

Solar farm trial shows improved fleece on merino sheep grazed under panels

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2022-05-30/solar-farm-graz...

If you’re keyword foraging, the term for this is ‘agrovoltaics’

`agrivoltaics’ seems to be common.

You’re being polite - that seems to be the term, and I’m only now just noticing I’ve been reading the word wrong. Thanks for catching

That is a big topic. There are plenty of farmers doing that. Especially further south, a bit of shade is actually helpful to protect plants. And farmers get more revenue out of their land this way too.

Interesting, how does harvesting work then? Or they mount the panels high enjoy so it's easy to get underneath?

Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics It's actually more straightforward than I thought.

Having sheep graze under solar panels is pretty standard here in Germany and it's a win for all sides.

Yes: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230424-how-agrivoltaics...

A new trend in agrivoltaics uses rows of double sided vertically-mounted solar panels, receiving light from the East and West. The rows are spaced far enough apart that combines or tractors or whatever can fit between. They take up a minimal amount of land and receive the earlier and later light of the day, helping avoid the grid spike in the afternoon.

The Philippines are also considering to startup their mothballed nuclear power plant.

Solar has really benefited from modularity. Panels and batteries are mass produced and conform to a standard interface regardless of manufacturer.

The small size of each unit means vastly more iteration on manufacturing than power sources that rely on larger units, so you also get more rapid advancement in manufacturing efficiency.

The end result is a 3.5 GW plant with 4 GWh storage can get built and made operational in two years time.

Natural gas plants — which are quick to build by the standards of power plants — will take four to six years to build for one with that output.

To me, most noteworthy is the 4GWh? Of battery storage.

That’s the amount of electricity that the four units at Vogtle nuclear power plant produce in one hour.

You try to make the capacity sound small but for battery storage it’s quite large.

Also, comparing it to nuclear is deliberate ofcourse, but nuclear energy has no future.

Wind, solar and battery storage is so insanely cheap, new nuclear power plants are not economically viable.

Not to be confused with symbol for roubles, ₽.

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