PV developer Solar Philippines New Energy Corporation (SPNEC) has issued a statement denying liability to pay PHP24 billion (US$400 million) in penalties levied by the Philippines’ Department of Energy (DoE).
This is in response to the DoE terminating and relinquishing 163 renewable energy service contracts from 2024 and 2025 last week, due to developers’ failures to meet obligations enshrined in GEA (Green Energy Auction) contracts, according to the Philippines government branch.
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The terminated contracts represented a combined potential 17.9GW of renewable energy, of which 12.3GW were from solar PV across 59 projects.
According to news outlet the Philippine News Agency, Sharon Garin, DoE Secretary, said: “Unfortunately, we had to cancel these contracts because the developers were not complying with the requirements under their GEA contracts.”
Garin added that 64% of the affected solar projects were attributed to Solar Philippines Power Project Holdings.
Today, SPNEC also announced plans to change its name to MGEN Renewables, as a subsidiary of the Meralco PowerGen Corporation (MGEN). The parent company stated that out of the 12GW of solar contracts terminated, only one of its projects—the 280MW Sta. Rosa project—was under its subsidiary. This project was awarded in the first round of the DoE’s Green Energy Auction Programme.
“This project already filed a notice of force majeure with the DoE last year, citing reasons beyond its control preventing it from completing the project by its target of December 2025,” said the company in its statement.
Moreover, MGEN currently has seven solar PV projects operational in the Philippines, with a combined capacity of more than 400MW. The company is currently building one of the largest solar-plus-storage projects in the world with the MTerra Solar project. The project aims to include 3.5GWp of solar PV and 4.5GWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS).
