Alternergy wind farms get ERC nod power proj

MANILA, Philippines - The Enery Regulatory Commission (ERC) has approved the application of Alternergy Wind One Corp. (AWOC) to put up two wind power projects in Rizal province.

In its decision, ERC gave AWOC the go-signal to provide power with capacity of 67.5 megawatts (MW) in Pililla and P72 MW in Sembrano wind farms, with project costs of P294 million and P235 million, respectively.

The two wind farms would interconnect using the facilities of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

In its application, AWOC told the ERC that connecting to Meralco’s system is the most feasible and the least costly means to dispatch the power and put into beneficial use the generated capacity of the Pililla and Sembrano wind farms.

Based on the initial phase of the wind farm project and its interconnection agreement with Meralco the Pililla wind farm will be interconnected with the distribution system of Meralco, through a dedicated point-to-point 10-kilometer-long 115-kV sub-transmission line with related facilities to be constructed.

The proposed 115-kV transmission line for Phase 1 will be a dedicated 10-km point-to-point connection transmission line which will be connected to Meralco’s 115-kV Malaya-Teresa transmission line.

The regulatory body specifically noted that the connection assets shall be used solely by AWOC and should not be used directly to serve the end-users.

Meanwhile, the interconnection agreement which will allow the Sembrano wind farm to connect to Meralco’s distribution system is currently under negotiation.

This includes the proposed utilization of a 15 km-long 115-kV line comprised of an eight km-long 115-kV line from the Sembrano wind farm to the Alternergy switching station and seven km long 115- kV line from switching station to tapping point.