TRANS-Asia Renewable Energy Corp. (Tarec), a wholly owned subsidiary of listed Trans-Asia Oil & Energy Development Corp., on Thursday said its wind-power project has addressed the power needs in Panay.
Tarec’s 54-megawatt (MW) wind energy project is consisted of 27 wind turbines, each with 2-MW of generation capacity installed over a 14-square -kilometer. area in San Lorenzo, in the nearby island of Guimaras. The power facility supplies power to Panay via a new 2.8-kilometer submarine cable connection from Guimaras.
We are very pleased with the outcome of the project. The wind in the area is better than expected,” said Danilo Panes, Tarec vice president. “Since we began operations, we were able to supply Panay a peak of 52 MW, or 96 percent of our rated capacity.”
In December last year, the project generated 9.163 gigawatt hours, which was supplied via the Visayas wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) to Panay.
Under the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, which promotes the use of renewable energy, wind-energy producers are given priority dispatch under the WESM system to supply their energy output to the grid.
The Renewable Energy Act also provides for a feed-in-tariff rate of P8.53 per kilowatt hour for an initial 200-MW allocation of new wind generation capacity.
Panes outlined the power project’s benefits, which, among others, reduces Panay’s reliance on power from Negros, frees up transformer capacity and increases the reliability of its connection to the Visayas grid.
“This, in turn, frees up Panays interconnection capacity with the Visayas grid for future growth. This was made possible, since we already earlier took it upon ourselves to upgrade and install a new submarine cable from Guimaras, which enabled incremental transmission capacity for our project to Panay,” Panes added.