Danish firm gets ECC for $3 billion offshore wind farm

MANILA, Philippines — Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) has secured a pre-development environmental clearance for its $3-billion offshore wind project in Camarines Sur.

This makes CIP the first offshore wind developer in the Philippines to obtain a pre-development environmental compliance certificate, a prerequisite to secure the ECC to jumpstart the construction phase.

Awarded by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the pre-development ECC will enable CIP to conduct offshore geotechnical works and geophysical surveys for the one-gigawatt (GW) San Miguel Bay offshore wind project.

These activities will help determine the design and layout of the proposed massive offshore wind farm targeted for commercial operations by 2028.

The ECC awarding followed the successful deployment of the state-of-the-art scanning and vertical LIDARs, or light detection and ranging devices, in its project sites in May.

“With this in place, we have initiated offshore site surveying, a critical step in advancing the project’s development,” said Rune Damgaard, co-CEO of Copenhagen Offshore Partners (COP), CIP’s investment vehicle in the Philippines.

Aside from the ECC, Damgaard said the wind farm was also certified as an energy project of national significance (ENPS).

The EPNS recognition is crucial in helping the project fast-track the construction of the grid infrastructure with the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, which is vital to evacuate energy from the wind farm.

In addition to the Camarines Sur project, CIP is also gearing up for the development of the one GW worth of offshore wind projects in northern Samar and Pangasinan with a capital outlay of $2 billion.

It likewise intends to invest $500 million to build and activate a 300-megawatt onshore wind project in northern Luzon, where wind conditions are claimed to be highly favorable.

The company aims to complete these projects within the term of President Marcos.