Energy firms to speed up offshore wind development

MANILA, Philippines — Six energy companies have formed a Philippine-based offshore wind industry organization to provide expertise and technical resource to accelerate the development of offshore wind projects in the country.

The group, dubbed as Pilipinas Offshore Wind Energy Resource Inc. (POWER), is composed of six founding members which are ACEN Corp., Blue Circle, BlueFloat Energy, Citicore Renewable Energy Corp., Ignis ZA Global, and Marubeni Asian Power Philippines Corp.

POWER seeks to accelerate offshore wind development over the next decade by providing technical assistance and advisory services to various government agencies, as well as coalition-building and advocacy to other stakeholders critical for a successful transition to renewable energy.

Through these efforts, POWER hopes to create favorable conditions to ensure the offshore wind development in the country can thrive.

“The primary aim is to help each other, collaborate. It’s a group of developers with wind energy service contracts. Having said that, these are developers that are supposed to design, develop, build, operate, and maintain. So, we have our own common concerns, our common issues, and of course common interests,” POWER president Raymund Pascual said.

Pascual said the group also opens up opportunities for potential partnerships among members of the group for offshore wind development.

“I’d say anything is possible at this point, also because of the very nature of the projects –  it’s in gigawatts,” he said.

POWER said offshore wind represents a unique opportunity to build a new clean energy industry and create a durable economic alternative to fossil fuel dependency.

The group said the Philippines is well-positioned to harness the power of offshore wind, with the country’s total technical potential estimated at 178 GW based on the World Bank’s offshore wind roadmap.

Offshore wind energy has been identified by the Department of Energy (DOE) as one of its top priorities in the country’s renewable energy sector.

In the updated Philippine Energy Plan (PEP) which the DOE will release soon, offshore wind has been included in the country’s portfolio of renewable energy.

Under the clean energy scenario in the draft PEP 2023 to 2050, the share of renewable energy in the generation mix is projected to reach 35 percent by 2030, 50 percent by 2040, and more than 50 percent by 2050.

The clean energy scenario includes two options for offshore wind capacity – a clean energy scenario – one with a 19-gigawatt (GW) capacity by 2050 and a clean energy scenario two which has a much higher capacity addition of 50 GW by 2050.