CAVITE, Philippines – Prime Solar, a subsidiary of Enrique Razon-led Prime Infrastructure, inaugurated on Wednesday, July 17, a 64-megawatt (MW) solar power plant in Maragondon, Cavite.

Prime Infra completes its Maragondon solar power plant more than a month after they inaugurated its sister 64-MW power plant in Tanauan, Batangas. This comes a year after Prime Infra broke ground.

“The completion of the Maragondon solar power plant is a significant milestone on Prime Infra’s energy portfolio,” said Prime Infra president and CEO Guillaume Lucci on Wednesday.

“This represents one-half of our entire project which is a sister plant in Tanauan.”

The company says both plants can power 84,000 households.

Cherry Mendoza, president and CEO of Prime Solar, said the design of the two power plants in Cavite and Batangas are similar, in that they both have seven blocks of solar panels and occupy around 60 hectares of land.

Mendoza also said they are still “figuring out” agrivoltaic farming which makes use of the land underneath the solar panels to grow crops.

Among those who graced the inauguration of the power plant are Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla, Energy Regulatory Commission chair Monalisa Dimalanta, Department of Energy (DOE) director Marissa Cerezo, and Maragondon Mayor Lawrence Arca.

The Philippine government aims to increase renewable sources in the energy mix from 22% in 2022 to 35% by 2030 and 50% by 2040.

According to Cerezo, there are currently around 500 active solar energy contracts with an aggregate installed capacity of 1.6 gigawatts being monitored by the DOE.

– Rappler.com