Even with overcast skies above, energy continues to be harvested by photovoltaic panels installed at the solar power plant operated by KEPCO Mangilao Solar LLC near Marbo Cave on Aug. 5, 2025.
Assistant Managing Editor
Even with overcast skies above, energy continues to be harvested by photovoltaic panels installed at the solar power plant operated by KEPCO Mangilao Solar LLC near Marbo Cave on Aug. 5, 2025.
Contracts for new solar farms that the Guam Power Authority wants online by 2028 have a collective value of about $2.48 billion over the span of their 25-year terms, based on a review of awards.
That amount will likely grow, as the power authority awards more energy deals to push the island towards its legally mandated goal of getting 50% of its power generation capacity from renewable energy by 2030.
For Guam, renewable energy is almost exclusively solar generated.
A slate of new solar energy deals approved by the Public Utilities Commission since August 2024 are part of GPA’s “Phase IV” renewable energy initiative, Pacific Daily News files show.
The authority wants to add a whopping 330 megawatts of renewable generation capacity to the grid by 2028.
GPA’s latest approved deal, for a golf course-to-solar farm conversion at the old Guam International Country Club, puts the authority up to about 242 MW of awarded solar generation capacity.
That leaves about 88 MW worth of awards to go for GPA to meet its Phase IV renewable energy initiative goal.
The power authority awards energy deals, called power purchase agreements, to different companies that will then finance, build, and run solar generation facilities. GPA buys the energy generated and then sells it to ratepayers.
The Public Utilities Commission approved the latest deal for the GICC solar farm in late June.
The old golf course will be split into three solar facilities run by three separate companies, all owned by Sun Energy Holdings, the PDN reported. A fourth facility in Yigo, also owned by Sun Energy, will bring total generation capacity brought online through the deal up to around 62 MW.
Over the life of the 25-year Sun Energy contract, energy sales have an estimated value of about $631.7 million, according to PUC documents.
Here are other recent solar awards by GPA, and their values:
Beyond the Phase IV initiative, GPA will have to add even more renewables to the grid. Public law 35-46, passed in 2019, requires the authority to get to 100% renewable generation by 2045.
A majority of the solar contracts GPA has awarded, and bids it has reported entertaining as part of its Phase IV initiative, offer solar energy at a rate 17 cents per kilowatt-hour, the Pacific Daily News has reported.
Back in 2018, Hanwha Energy Corp. agreed to build a solar farm and sell power to GPA at just 8.4 cents per kWh, about half of what newer deals are coming in for.
But Phase IV solar includes additional batteries, needed to store solar energy generated during the day and “shift” it to be used at nighttime. That capacity wasn’t a part of older solar deals.
GPA has also reported the cost of materials needed for solar facilities sharply rising post-pandemic.
Power authority General Manager John Benavente has said that additional solar capacity will “hedge” against steep fuel surcharge hikes when global oil prices swing.
Benavente in 2024 said that reduced reliance on fuel from Phase IV should see the fuel surcharge, or levelized energy adjustment clause, LEAC, on customers’ power bills max out at around 20 cents per kWh at the most.
That’s higher than the 19.4-cent per kWh LEAC charge customers now pay, but lower than what customers paid for most of the past five years.
The surcharge went as high as 31 cents per kWh in late 2022, driving the average GPA customer’s bill to about $416.10 a month, PDN files show.
Likewise, today’s 19.4-cent LEAC charge isn’t the full amount GPA needs to recoup the steep cost of fuel oil for its generators, in the wake of the U.S. and Iran war. To fully recoup fuel costs, the power authority would have to push LEAC charges up to 23.1 cents per kWh, PDN files show.
GPA has moved to secure short-term borrowing of up to $70 million to cover fuel costs, instead, and stave off even higher power bill increases.
Reach Joe Taitano II at JTaitano@guampdn.com.
Assistant Managing Editor
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Stupid idea. Another stupid idea. Nobody winning here except the company’s collecting to 2.5 billion. This is not gonna bring power bills down. It’ll get blown away during a typhoon. Dang you people. Smh. Stupid ideas.
GPA and that Korean profiteer: ruining the landscape one solar farm at a time.
Put the solar panels atop hotel roofs and parking garages. Stop ruining the land.
GPA/CCU/PUC are operating under the premise that the world is a sane place and people in positions of authority make sane decisions. They are mistaken. You have to always account for the worst case scenario and build out from there and even then you are just treading water.
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