New wind farms spark gripes in power-short Cebu

CEBU CITY – Emerging power shortages here are starting to hobble economic growth. And they’re sparking questions if options offered by a US Nationa Renewable Energy Laboratory report on wind energy were beyond local officials high on pork barrel.

The questions erupted after the government’s PNOC Energy Development Corp. announced Wednesday it is launching three more state-of-the-art wind farms in Ilocos, Alkan and Surigao.

"Not Cebu?," snapped the independent Cebu Daily News. As early as 1988, papers urged action on the US report. Wind farms, even then, were already generating six times as much electricity as they did in the 1990s. That upward trend has continued.

"The Philippines has good-to-excellent wind resource potential, enough to conservatively generate – at least 170,000 megawatts," the US study said, the dominant Sun Star Cebu reported then.

Promising wind corridors cut through Cebu, Ilocos Norte, Aklan and Surigao, among others. Sun-Star pointed out. It also prodded local leaders to take a good hard look at the option before power shortages would hit.

That was five years ago. Since then, wind generating capacity multiplied by 27 times over 2002 level, Vital Signs 2003 reports. "Spurred by falling costs, new technology, concern about climate change and new government policies wind is fastest growing energy sources in the world..."

"Our leaders did nothing," Cebu Daily News editorial of March 26, 2003 that said : "In contrast, local officials of Ilocos Norte carefully pored the report and moved – fast."

Ilocos Norte completed plans for Southeast Asia’s biggest commercial wind farm. It secured a ¥5,857 billion loan from Tokyo’s Japanese fourth special scheme.

This loan now bankrolls a three-phase 120-megawatt Northern Luzon wind power project, now rising in Burgos. Phase 1 will generate 42 megawatts when the farm is commissioned in 2005.

"Cebu could have been in the forefront if officials here acted decisively on the information," Cebu Daily News editorial said two years ago. Titled : "Wind Sirs, Not Hot Air", that commentary added: "the first wind turbines are going up in Ilocos Norte because officials there had vision".

The North Luzon wind farm will usher in state-of-the art power technology. Economic spin-offs will stem, not from costly fossil fuel imports from a volatile Middle East. They’d be sourced from renewable and locally-available, power source.

"It’s one thing for Ilocos Norte to beat Cebu in launching a state-of-the-art wind farm," the dominant Sun Star daily noted back in Dec. 2, 2001 after Tokyo approved the loan. "It’s another for Cebu’s smug officials not even to know we’ve been trashed."

Now, the three additional wind farm projects will be sited in Nuberta, Carrasacal, Surigao del Sur; Bayog , Ilocos Norte; Manoc-Manoc, Boracay, Alkan. A German loan of 40 million euros from a German loan funds the initial phase: a feasibility study for long term wind monitoring.

"Now Aklan, Surigao and Ilocos trashed us yet again," the paper adds. Still, we aren’t even aware."

Criticism here is also stoked by two factors: ( a ) contrast in policy thrusts and ( b ) exploding Japanese debt repayments for Mayor Tomas Osmena’s yen loans..

In Cebu, Tokyo IOUs "underwrite cacique style real estate development, as in the South Reclamation Project," CDN’s editorial "Windmills of the Mind" ( 26 March 2003 ) editorial noted. "What’s government doing anyway, peddling real estate? businessmen mutter.

Wind farms, in contrast, provide energy for industries and home. They tap into cutting-edge technology for a energy source that is renewable, non-polluting and available locally. "The answer is blowin‚in the wind," the old pop song goes.

Osmena signed for Cebu yen loans when one US dollar fetched P26. Today, the dollar seesaws between P54 and P55. Repayment and interest costs have exploded, ushering in a possible liquidity squeeze .

Official horizons here don’t go beyond the next elections. What to these officials is the new Merrill Lynch forecast that: "wind power will grow 15 fold over the nex 20 years"?

"Nothing is more confining than "windmills of the mind" in Cebu’s obsolescent leaders, noted the Sun Star daily in: "We Wuz Trashed – And Didn’t Even Know It." "He is shortsighted,"Khalil Gibran wrote, "who looks only at the walls he leans on."– DEPTHnews