Insurance Brokering Firm Launches Facility For Small Power Projects In PHL

With the influx of renewable energy projects in the country, European firm insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson is offering a new facility that will encourage banks to support local power projects.

Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Brokers Inc. president and chief executive officer Graham Edwards, in an interview Tuesday, the facility would be for mid-size projects as these types often had problems securing financing due to the risk of not bagging the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) allocation.

Regional managing director Stephen Boddington, for his part, says the Philippines has a huge market for small scale RE insurance due to the sudden boom.

He also bares the company’s targets to gain between 5 and 10 projects for the year. It offers an insurance coverage of 6 months for solar projects and 1.5 year for hydro during the construction phase.

The director further says it will review the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts, but quick to explain that each policy is unique due to different factors, such as weather to which the project area is prone to natural disasters.

He stressed the small scale projects had a capacity of 1-50 megawatts (MW), with solar and wind costing 0.2 percent of its EPC cost and hydro around 0.75-1 percent.

Edwards said the broker could work on solar, mini-hydro and biomass projects.

Boddington said BDO, Metrobank and UCPB would likely provide the financing.

Edwards further stressed developers could claim the insurance in one month.

“Once an event happens and the data supports it, they’ll pay you within 30 days. Very different approach — but it costs more,” he told reporters. (PNA) RMA/JLD