The Department of Energy on Tuesday confirmed PetroGreen Energy Corp’s 50-megawatt (MW) Nabas wind power project in Aklan as commercially viable.
PetroGreen Energy, through wholly-owned subsidiary PetroGreen Resources Corporation, is developing the Nabas wind farm in the municipality of Nabas where AKELCO is the electricity distribution franchise holder.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, PetroGreen Energy noted the government also approved the conversion of its service contract from pre-development to development stage with a contract life until 2034.
Subject to the commerciality declaration and megawatt allocation for the project, PetroGreen Energy intends to commence initial development works in Nabas this year. The start of commercial operations of the project is being eyed by the middle of 2014.
“Our goal is to provide clean indigenous power at the earlier possible time to meet the soaring power demand in Boracay, Aklan, and Panay,” PetroGreen Energy president Milagros V. Reyes noted in the statement to the PSE.
“Sustaining the country’s high economic growth requires more power supply and the Nabas venture is our way of contributing to a virtuous cycle of energy investment and sustained economic growth, especially in the countryside,” she added.
Outgoing Aklan Governor Carlito Marquez said the confirmation of the wind project as commercially viable was a welcome development. “This facility will provide Aklan with its first relatively indigenous and renewable energy generation source of its own and, being near Boracay, will also expand the eco-tourism destinations in Aklan and the entire Western Visayas,” he added.
The Energy Regulatory Commission’s earlier approved a feed-in-tariff (FIT) rate for wind-generated electricity projects at is P8.53 a kilowatt-hour.
“Contrary to initial skepticism that the DOE’s first-come, first served policy on FIT allocation will discourage investments, the number of serious players committed to putting their wind projects into commercial operations and vying for FIT allocation continues to increase,” said Mario Marasigan, DOE director for Renewable Energy.
