Laguna Lake Hosts the Largest Floating Solar Project in the World
News articles dated prior to 2024 were originally published on the Blueleaf Energy Asia website.
22 Aug 2023, Philippines – The Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) awarded the lake lease agreements granting SunAsia Energy and its investment partner Blueleaf Energy, a stand-alone portfolio company of Macquarie, the right to develop and construct one of the world’s largest floating solar projects. In a ceremony held in Makati, the General Manager of the Lake Authority Senando Santiago officially handed the certificates of award to SunAsia Energy, which was the winning bidder for ten blocks of lake surface comprising a total of 1,000 hectares in Laguna Lake.
The combined capacity of the ten projects will be approximately 1,300 MW of installed floating solar energy. SunAsia Energy is a pioneer developer of clean and renewable solar energy in the Philippines. In partnership with SunAsia Energy, Blueleaf Energy is jointly developing the large-scale floating solar facility on the Laguna Lake. Signing the lake lease agreements secures tenurial rights to progress project development, such as the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC). Construction of the project is expected to commence in 2025 and operations will begin progressively between 2026 and 2030. President Bongbong Marcos declared the 1,300 MW floating solar project a national priority.
Raghuram Natarajan, CEO of Blueleaf Energy said: “We are pleased to have reached this significant milestone of obtaining the lake lease agreements. This allows us to embark on the subsequent tasks of development, commercialization, construction, and operation of the floating solar power plants, which will help fulfill the country’s ambitious renewable energy commitments. We would like to thank the Department of Energy Philippines, Philippine Board of Investments, Laguna Lake Development Authority, and other integral agencies involved in this positive development.”
According to SunAsia Energy, “land use is becoming a big issue for renewables, particularly for solar energy projects. People and policymakers are worrying about competing uses of land. Currently, project developers are struggling to find land to locate the solar power plants. Most of the time, delays in solar energy projects are normally caused by the consolidation of properties and late issuances of land conversion permits. So, there is an incentive to build on water.”
Laguna Lake is the largest freshwater lake in the Philippines with an area of over 90,000ha. The first allocation of 2,000ha for solar energy is small, about two percent of the total lake surface, however, the economic benefits of the project will be significant.
Once completed, the project will light thousands of homes, run factories, and increase the share of renewable energy in the total energy mix in the Philippines. The project has the potential to avoid greenhouse gas emissions of over 1 million tonnes CO2 equivalent annually.
About Blueleaf Energy
Blueleaf Energy is a leading pan Asian renewable energy platform that develops, finances, owns and operates renewables and storage assets to accelerate the energy transition towards net zero and beyond.
Committed to upholding the highest environmental, social, governance and safety standards, Blueleaf Energy serves both corporate and industrial consumers and large utilities, providing our customers access to competitive and green energy mix and solutions to achieve their sustainability targets.
Blueleaf Energy has a development pipeline of solar, wind and storage projects in excess of 7 GW, a historical track record of developing and building 2 GW of capacity globally which includes over 500 MW in the Asia Pacific.
Blueleaf Energy is a portfolio company of Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG), operating on a standalone basis. In the Philippines, Blueleaf Energy is managed by the Macquarie Capital operating group of the Macquarie Group.