Meralco in talks for wind project

MANILA, Philippines - Power distribution giant Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is in talks to buy into a wind power project in Rizal province that can generate more than 150 megawatts (MW).

“We would be interested in doing some renewable energy projects by partnering with renewable energy firms,” Meralco president and CEO Oscar Reyes told The STAR.

Meralco has relayed to Alternergy Philippines Holdings Corp. “expressions of commercial interest” for the Pililla wind farm in Rizal province, Reyes said.

Meralco, through its subsidiary Meralco PowerGen Corp., targets an installed power generation capacity of 2,700 MW from now until 2020 to ensure adequate, reliable and cheap supply of electricity.

The target consists of two 600-MW coal-fired power plants and four 375-MW liquefied natural gas power plants.

The first phase of Alternergy’s wind project can generate around 67.5 MW while the second phase can go up to around 100 MW subject to studies on the transmission capacity and a wind resource assessment, Reyes said.

Early this year, Meralco signed an interconnection deal with Alternergy Wind One Corp.

The agreement will allow the interconnection and parallel operation of Alternergy’s wind project to the distribution network of Meralco.

Alternergy will build a 115-kilovolt (kV) line to connect to Meralco’s distribution network through the existing Malaya-Teresa 115-kV line.

“What we are doing is effectively partnering on addressing the transmission and interconnection,” Reyes said.

Directly connecting to Meralco will generate saving as the grid’s transmission lines will no longer be needed for the power transmission.

Aside from the Pililla wind farm, Alternergy is also the proponent of the 1,944-hectare, 40-MW Kalayaan wind power project in Laguna and the 18,711-hectare, 30-MW Abra de Ilog wind power project in Occidental Mindoro.