Trans Asia adds 54 MW to Panay operations

MANILA, Philippines - Trans Asia Renewable Energy Corp. (Tarec), the renewable energy arm of the Phinma Group, is now supplying additional power to Panay Island following the successful operations of its new 54-megawatt wind project in Guimaras.

Located in San Lorenzo, in the nearby island of Guimaras, the wind farm consists of 27 wind turbines each with two MW of generation capacity installed over a 14 square kilometer area.

The project supplies power to Panay via a new 2.8-kilometer submarine cable connection from Guimaras, Tarec vice president Danilo Panes said yesterday.

Thus, Panes said the power plant has been able augment power supply in Panay.

“Since we began operations, we were able to supply Panay a peak of 52 MW or 96 percent of our rated capacity,” Panes said.

He also said that the new power project reduces its 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 Panay’s 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,” he said.

For the month of December 2014, the project generated 9.163 gigawatt hours of power, which was supplied to Panay through the Visayas wholesale electricity spot market (WESM).

This is possible because under the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, which promotes the use of renewable energy, wind energy producers such as Tarec are given priority dispatch under the WESM system to supply their energy output to the grid. 

Furthermore, the Renewable Energy Act also provides for a feed in tariff (FIT) rate of P8.53 per kwh for an initial 200 MW allocation of new wind generation capacity.