NGCP, wind energy developers to build transmission backbone

MANILA, Philippines - To promote the use of wind power in the country, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and the Wind Energy Development Association of the Philippines (WEDAP) have agreed to put up facilities that would support the transmission of some 600 megawatt (MW) new capacities from wind energy.

NGCP senior technical adviser Guillermo Redoblado said the company and the newly-formed wind energy developers’ group have both committed to provide transmission backbone in nothern Luzon where most of the wind power developments are situated.

“It’s one of our priority projects. We’re doing our computations because it will have impact on the rates,” NGCP said.

WEDAP, composed of First Gen Corp.’s affliliate Energy Development Corp., Alternergy Philippine Holdings Corp., Trans Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp., PetroEnergy Resources Corp., UPC Renewables and Northwind Power Development Corp., have called on the government to support their efforts to promote wind power in the Philippines.

It was learned that there is a pending request from WEDAP to the Department of Energy (DOE) to identify portions of the northern Luzon as one of the country’s wind corridors.

In this way, the group said they would be able to put up the proposed 600 MW in the said corridor.

If the government will consider this as wind corridor, NGCP and other government agencies would put this area in their priority list.

Because of the higher project cost, NGCP apparently reluctant to put additional facilities as the wind proponents may end up not pushing through wth their projects.

Industry sources said NGCP would not want to putt up 600 MW worth of investment and may end up transmitting only 300-400 MW should the wind developers suddenly decide to abandon the projects due to high costs. “They are hoping to come up with a compromise,” the source said.