Global sustainable development consultancy Arup has won three awards at this year’s Energy Industries Council (EIC) APAC Regional Awards. Our work on the development of hillside solar farms in the Philippines stood out amongst strong competition and was awarded the top prize in the Energy Transition & Sustainability, Service & Solutions and the EIC Survive & Thrive/Optimisation categories.

Solar plants were identified by the Philippines government as a critical component of their energy security strategy and will help the country accelerate its energy transition. Considering the land requirement and to avoid competing with agricultural land use, our client looked creatively to alternative terrain options such as denudated mountain land to develop their solar farm.

Arup is working on a first-of-its kind hillside solar farm in the Philippines, drawing on our extensive experience in delivering complex infrastructure and mastery of solar design knowledge. Faced with an undulating and vast terrain, we developed a proprietary automation tool which helped us to gain visual accuracy and optimise design on the slopes.

The tool identifies the most ideal solar panel placement taking into consideration site limitations such as steep inclines and severe erosion. It also recognises the orientation and tilt that will maximise energy yields. This is not only saving our designers a third of the design time, but also providing us with critical data that will help minimise risks and abortive work during the installation process.

Arup's automation tool generates a layout of the terrain
Generating the terrain to establish panel locations
Arup's tool allows the user to envisage how solar panels might be laid out
Envisioning solar panel layout vis-a-vis terrain slope angles
The final layout of the solar panels
Final layout of solar panels in 3D © Google Earth

The awards are a recognition of Arup’s creativity, technical excellence and intensive collaboration between multidisciplinary teams. I am so proud of the pioneering work we are doing to extend the limits of solar PV installation as the Philippines move towards clean energy generation. I hope that the good we did in the Philippines will inspire similar developments in southeast asian countries of comparable landscape. 

Lynn Dimayuga

Philippines Energy Business Leader, Arup