Ayala, Mitsubishi officials visit Ilocos wind farm

MANILA, Philippines - Top officials from Ayala Corp., the country’s oldest conglomerate, led by chairman and CEO Jaime August Zobel de Ayala, together with its new partners for its renewable energy project conducted a site visit in Ilocos Norte last Tuesday.

Ayala Corp. recently sold its stake in an 81-megawatt wind project in Ilocos Norte under Luzon Wind Energy Holdings to Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary DGA NLREC B.V.

The group also paid a courtesy call on Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos.

“Senior executives from Ayala and Mitsubishi visited Ilocos Norte last Tuesday to welcome Mitsubishi/DGA as new partners in North Luzon Renewables. We conducted a site visit and had a pleasant courtesy meeting with Governor Imee,” said Ayala Corp. managing director John Eric T. Francia.

Luzon Wind owns part of Ayala Corporation’s stake in North Luzon Renewable Energy Corp. (NLREC) held by its wholly-owned subsidiary AC Energy Holdings, Inc., the conglomerate’s energy arm.

NLREC owns and operates an 81 MW wind farm in Barangay Caparispisan, Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte.

It was in September when Ayala Corp. announced the sale of Luzon Wind, trimming its stake to 36 percent from roughly 64 percent.

Ayala Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp. have been partners since 1974, when they signed an agreement to jointly explore investment opportunities in the Philippines.

In the past three years Ayala has committed over $700 million in equity to build much needed base load capacity and to develop renewable energy sources.

The group is targeting to put up 1,000 megawatts in capacity in the next few years.

The sale comes even as the 81 MW project received its feed-in-tariff (FIT) eligibility certificate from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), the power regulator, last April.

FIT is a set of incentives given to renewable energy players.

Under the FIT system, renewable energy companies are entitled to the following FIT rates: P9.68 per kwh for solar power, P8.53 per kwh for wind and P5.90 per kwh for run-of-river hydroelectric power.

The FIT rate covers the period Nov. 11, 2014 to Nov. 10, 2034 for North Luzon Renewables’ 81MW.

Aside from the 81 MW project, AC Energy also has another wind farm project, the 19-MW wind farm expansion in Bangui, under Northwind Power Development Corp. (Northwind),

AC Energy registered a net income in the first half of the year of P198 million, driven by the contributions from its two wind farms and two coal plants, South Luzon Thermal Energy Corporation in Batangas, and GNPower Mariveles Coal Plant in Bataan.

So far, it has assembled over 700 megawatts of attributable generating capacity across various assets. It continues to work on a pipeline of power projects to meet its goal of building around 1,000 MW in generating capacity over the next few years.