BlueFloat Energy bets big on Philippine market

MANILA, Philippines — Madrid-based BlueFloat Energy is betting big on the Philippine offshore wind industry, aiming to scale up the country’s energy infrastructure to meet growing electricity needs.

In an exclusive interview with The STAR, BlueFloat Energy senior development advisor for Asia Pacific Jarek Pole and BlueFloat Philippines acting country manager Armando Gamboa Jr. shared recent developments in their Philippine expansion.

The company marked its entry into the Philippine market last year with the acquisition of wind energy service contracts in four sites in Central Luzon, Southern Luzon, Northern Luzon and Southern Mindoro.

“If you look from the perspective of the Philippines, there’s a lot of ingredients in the markets that really make sense. It’s aligned with offshore wind technology,” Pole said.

He cited the need to decarbonize the domestic economy through renewables in line with the country’s green energy targets.

“Electricity will not come anymore from fossil fuels… We need a (large) generation to meet the demand. The capacity that (the Philippines has) now is not enough to meet the demand,” he claimed.

Seeing this rising energy demand, BlueFloat plans to put up 7.6 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity in the Philippines, making the country its biggest market.

Pole said they are investing $2.5 million to $4 million per megawatt (MW) for bottom-fixed wind farms, while up to $6 million per MW is allocated to develop floating wind projects.

Throughout the entire development process, the company expects to provide about 12,000 employment opportunities for Filipinos.

For BlueFloat’s investments in the Philippines, Gamboa said their projects are still in the pre-development stage, prioritizing those near load centers that already have critical infrastructure like the grid and ports.

The company recently completed a systems impact study with the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines to secure the interconnection and is currently doing a bathymetry survey on the sites to validate the water depth.

According to Gamboa, they are looking to start construction work as early as 2028 to deliver the first phase of the projects by 2031 or 2032.

Permits and regulatory frameworks are now being fine-tuned, with ongoing coordination among government agencies such as the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Gamboa stressed that aside from the demand, the ease of doing business in the Philippines is what also attracted the principals from BlueFloat.

Challenges for developers

Despite a favorable business environment in the Philippines, Gamboa said that offshore wind developers continue to see potential challenges.

“One is ports. We haven’t seen an offshore wind project built without a port, so ports will be a critical infrastructure that needs to be built,” he noted.

While the DOE has already provided 10 ports for pre-feasibility studies, Gamboa said that port developers want to ensure that these will be economically viable.

“Aside from that, the transmission capacity needs to increase significantly because we’re looking at big projects here for offshore wind, and these are in the middle of the sea,” the executive said.

The NGCP should consider expanding capacities to areas that need to be augmented, he added, noting that this critical infrastructure will be the key to powering the country’s offshore wind industry.

BlueFloat’s expansion in the Philippines complements its broader strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, where around 50 percent of its global pipeline projects are located.

It boasts a total capacity of 34.1 GW of floating and bottom-fixed offshore wind projects across Colombia, Scotland, Portugal, Spain, England, France, Italy, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia and the Philippines.

BlueFloat is a co-founder of Pilipinas Offshore Wind Energy Resource Inc., an organization of local and global industry players that include Ayala Group’s ACEN Corp. and Saavedra-led Citicore Renewable Energy Corp.