Mabini Energy secures additional funding from Basic Energy

MANILA, Philippines — Mabini Energy Corp. (MEC) has secured an additional P10.82 million funding from its parent firm to further boost its wind assessment in its service contract area in Batangas.

The additional funding will be used to purchase and deploy a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) equipment, a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges to the earth.

MEC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of listed Basic Energy Corp., said LIDAR is a technology that is now being recommended and accepted by the lending institutions in wind resource assessment campaign.

The equipment will supplement wind data gathering of the northern portion of its service contract area in view of the company’s decision to move the meteorological mast southward.

“The LIDAR equipment will further enhance the data gathering of the wind resource assessment and expand the coverage  over the existing wind mast already installed,” MEC said.

“The use of LIDAR technology can avoid data extrapolations, hence, reducing uncertainties, as well as the time needed to construct another met mast. Furthermore, its data would help in the detailed wind modelling, which is critical in  identifying, wind turbine technology and its locations,” it said.

Last October, MEC  announced that it officially started the wind resource assessment campaign after successfully installing and testing the met mast facility in Mabini, Batangas for its potential 50-MW Mabini wind energy project.

A one-week functional test of the meteorological mast was undertaken to ensure it will perform according to its design intent during the period of wind resource assessment.

The assessment will verify the wind characteristics of the area for a potential wind power farm.

Basic Energy said a favorable one-year period of assessment campaign would lead to the micro siting process to  determine the wind turbine locations, as well as its design.

The wind power farm is expected to operate and deliver power energy to the grid by 2027.

Given the encouraging early and preliminary data being gathered by the existing met mast already installed, Basic Energy said its board approved the request of MEC for additional funding to purchase and install a LIDAR system in its service  contract area.

Basic Energy earlier said it was allocating P6.35 million for the  exploration of  prospective areas for wind power development.

The company has seven areas of interest for possible wind power development, in line with its thrust to search and develop other power plant projects, particularly solar and wind.