Enlarge: Michael Kurt Räuber (left), managing director of Royal Cargo Inc., and Ambassador Dr. Gordon Kricke officially inaugurate the 225-kWp solar rooftop expansion

In 2015, the German project developer Aschoff Solar GmbH implemented a 245 kWp PV rooftop plant on a cold storage facility of the industrial company Royal Cargo in Binan City, Laguna near Metro Manila with the support of the Project Development Programme (PDP) of the Export Initiative Energy.

The rooftop PV system was designed as a captive power plant only, as there are no plans yet to export the generated electricity to the public grid. Royal Cargo's connection to the grid is for the sole purpose of meeting its internal load requirements. The system was designed as a modular structure based on nine standard string inverters. The standard polycrystalline modules were mounted on the southeast and northwest facing roof surfaces. Power control and metering devices allow the solar power to be reduced in cases where demand is low and therefore there is a risk of feeding into the grid. In addition, there is the possibility of immediate shutdown in the event of a sudden drop in demand without a corresponding drop in available solar power. A high-quality mounting system was used.

The photovoltaic system enabled Royal Cargo, a logistics company, to make significant savings on electricity bills and led to a renewed contract with Aschoff Solar in 2016 for a follow-up phase (another 225 kWp). PDP also accompanied the second phase of the reference project in a scaling approach and provided support for the design of the monitoring and the opening of the new solar plant in February 2017.

Support of the German Energy Solutions Initiative

PDP’s thorough awareness raising campaigns for the potential of solar energy solutions including various studies and reference guides for PV-projects contributed significantly to Royal Cargo’s decision to invest in their own roof-top system.
As a clear-cut and documented licensing procedure for roof-top systems exceeding 100 kWp had not yet been in place, the PDP team facilitated the contact establishment between key stakeholders to set-off such a procedure: the local utility Manila Electric Company (Meralco), the regulatory agency Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and various international experts. Throughout a series of workshops, they provided technical expert input.

System Data