Wind power sector gets boost from ADB

The Asian Development Bank has granted a $500,000 technical assistance to the Philippine government to promote and build the country’s wind power generation capacity under the bank’s Quantum Leap in Wind Power program.

Energy Undersecretary Jose M. Layug Jr. said on Wednesday that the Philippines was one of the program’s recipient countries, together with Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The target was to bring promising climate change-related technologies to commercial production.

According to Layug, the amount could be used for the revision of the existing wind energy roadmap, wind resource mapping, knowledge and capacity building, and prefeasibility studies.

Layug disclosed that the Department of Energy was planning to put up wind masts to measure the availability of wind in Cagayan, Aklan and Camarines Norte, where there are existing service contract holders. The energy agency was hoping that with more available data, it could fetch a better work program from prospective investors.

The DOE, however, was still identifying which institution would manage the data to be collected. So far, according to Layug, the DOE was looking at educational institutions such as the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, University of Asia and the Pacific or the Asian Institute of Management (AIM).

It is also considering government agencies such as the DOE itself, the Department of Science and Technology or the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) as well as nongovernment institutions or the Wind Energy Development Association of the Philippines (Wedap).

The last study conducted on the country’s wind resources was the Philippine Wind Energy Resource Atlas prepared by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2001.

According to this study, the Philippines had 76,600 megawatts of total wind potential in six regions: the Batanes and Babuyan islands, north of Luzon; Ilocos Norte; the higher interior terrain of Luzon, Mindoro, Samar, Leyte, Panay, Negros, Cebu, Palawan, eastern Mindanao and adjacent islands; coastal locations from northern Luzon to Samar; wind corridors between Luzon and Mindoro, and islands between Mindoro and Panay.

The Philippines only has one wind farm, the 33-MW Bangui Bay project installed by North Wind Power Development Corp.  The DOE said it would add 2,345 MW of wind capacity by 2030 to remain as the leading wind energy producer in Southeast Asia.