Iceland firm bags $47-million deal with Biliran power cooperative

MANILA, Philippines – Envent, a major geothermal developer backed by Iceland-based investors, has clinched a power supply contract in the Visayas worth $47 million.

Envent chief executive officer Gudmundur F. Sigurjonsson, said they have signed a 10-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Biliran Electric Cooperative for about 8,600 megawatt-hours (mwh) per year of clean, renewable electricity at a levelized price of $94 per mwh.

According to the Envent official, the baseload electricity will come from Envent’s 50-MW Biliran Unit 1 geothermal power plant, which is scheduled to start operations in 2012 on Biliran Island.

This agreement commits about 10 percent of the capability of the Unit 1.

Sigurjonsson said they expect to enter into additional PPAs worth about $515 million in the coming months.

“The execution of this PPA reflects the good spirit of cooperation between Envent and the local electric cooperatives in the Leyte area. This is a significant milestone in the development of our Biliran Unit 1 project and an important stepping stone as the corporation moves forward with its plans. Parallel to working on completing more PPAs we will be working on the financial structure of the project, which we expect will take between six and 12 months,” he said.

Envent’s Biliran Unit 1 is located on the island of Biliran in the Eastern Visayas region. Biliran, which has a good connection to the national power grid, lies just a few kilometers north of the island of Leyte.

The upstream part of Biliran Unit 1 is being executed in collaboration with Biliran Geothermal Inc. and several other local companies.

Envent is a renewable energy company dedicated to the exploration of geothermal resources in the Philippines as well as to the development of geothermal power plants in the region.

Envent’s majority owners are Geysir Green Energy and Reykjavik Energy Invest both based in Iceland, where an impressive 100 percent of the power capacity is derived from renewable sources (23 percent geothermal and 77 percent hydro).

Envent is currently working on several geothermal projects and is committed to contributing to the Philippine government’s target of adding 1,200 MW of renewable power capacity by 2013.