Leviste’s solar energy firm slapped with P24-B fine
The solar energy company that made Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste the country’s youngest billionaire is being slapped with a P24-billion penalty for failing to produce power it committed to deliver under more than 30 service contracts with the government.
Leviste’s Solar Philippines Power Project Holdings Inc. (SPPHI) drew hefty sanctions from the Department of Energy (DOE) at a time when the neophyte congressman had been making headlines over statements that tend to put fellow lawmakers on the spot regarding the public works funds allotted to their districts.
In a briefing on Tuesday, Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said the DOE had terminated 163 projects awarded to various companies for their failure to follow the timeline agreed upon for power production.
Garin said more than half of those projects, or 64 percent, were handled by SPPHI, the company founded by Leviste in 2013 when he was 20 years old.
Garin said the canceled contracts under Leviste’s firm include 33 that were secured under the Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP), as well as some agreements outside GEAP reached between 2014 and 2019.
GEAP is a government initiative intended to accelerate the development of renewable energy sources, in line with the Marcos administration’s target to increase the share of renewables in the country’s power generation pie from the current 22 percent to 35 percent by 2030.
According to the DOE, the SPPHI’s idled projects were mostly located in Luzon. There were no details immediately made available regarding their locations.
In all, those idled projects were expected to generate a total of more than 11,000 megawatts (MW).
No response
Despite the DOE’s consistent attempt to communicate with the company, Garin said, the agency has “not received any response” or any petition to extend the compliance period or reconsider the sanction.
“To be able to terminate a contract, we have to go through the whole due process,” the secretary told reporters.
“What we want are legitimate investors, that’s why we’re cleaning it out,” Garin added.
In the past two years, the agency has been cracking down on noncompliant power producers, or investors who committed to launch power plants but failed to follow their timeline.
A total of 163 contracts had been terminated in the 2024-2025 period, covering solar, biomass, geothermal, hydro and wind.
The scrapped deals involved the supposed production of nearly 18,000 MW. The bulk of them was solar, which accounted for 12,271 MW.
Leviste had yet to respond to the Inquirer’s request for comment as of press time.
Multibillion-peso fine
Given the coverage of failed projects, Leviste’s SPPHI needs to settle about P24 billion, composed of performance bonds and other financial obligations.
Around P14 billion of the total is for the performance bonds, required under the GEAP.
Garin said the DOE was already preparing “everything within the first quarter” to compel the company to pay.
Leviste, a first-term congressman representing the first district of Batangas, recently made headlines for exposing a bribery attempt by a district engineer and for obtaining files on the infrastructure budget from the late Public Works Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral.
Last week, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla claimed that Leviste allegedly sold his solar energy franchise to tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan.
The alleged transaction, which Remulla said failed to go through congressional approval, is already under probe.
Pangilinan’s Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGEN) distanced itself from the controversy, saying SP New Energy Corp. (SPNEC) is “a separate and distinct corporate entity from Solar Para Sa Bayan Corp. (SPBC).”
SPBC was awarded a congressional franchise through Republic Act No. 11357 to construct, install and operate solar-powered microgrids in remote areas.
Only big player
The DOE maintained that Leviste was not being singled out in its crackdown on nonperforming power producers.
“It so happened that the projects were supposed to be delivered by December 2025,” the agency said.
Asked if there were other notable companies, the DOE said the rest of the canceled contracts were held by “smaller players.”
The document showing the list of terminated contracts has yet to be posted on the agency’s website as of Tuesday afternoon.
DOE officials also noted SPNEC, now under the Pangilinan group, has no project on the list.
SPBC has also no existing developments.
To prevent a repeat of renewable energy projects failing to meet contract obligations, the DOE is set to impose tougher rules, including the possibility of banning noncompliant developers.
Fortune favors the prepared