The AC Energy Holdings is set to expand its renewable energy (RE) portfolio as it’s looking to upgrade one of its wind farms by 69 megawatts.
North Luzon Renewables Energy Corp. (NLREC) – who owns and operates the 81 MW wind farm in Barangay Caparispisan in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte – can have a 69 expansion, NLREC president Miguel de Jesus said.
“We have an application for a service contract for 69 MW expansion to raise its generating capacity to 150 MW,” de Jesus said, adding that this can be done through a separate company.
In line with the expansion, the AC Energy affiliate is pushing for the implementation of the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) in the absence of the feed-in-tariff (TIF) scheme.
Once the permits are secured, proceeding with the expansion project will depend on the implementation of the RPS, AC Energy president and CEO John Eric Francia said.
“We’ve already applied and we are still waiting. We are working on that so we will be on push button mode already by the time RPS becomes a reality. Once we complete all these pre-development work which we are doing right now, then, hopefully it will dovetail with the period when RPS is already being implemented,” he said.
A provision of the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 says that the RPS mandates the power industry players to produce and source a certain percentage of electricity from RE sources.
De Jesus added that NLEREC’s expansion is on top of the plan to develop 150 MW to 200 MW more wind projects in northern Luzon owned by UPC Philippines,
Once pursued, AC Energy will have discussions with UPC Philippines to partner for the project expansion.
“If that expansion happens or before it happens, we undertake to discuss it with UPC,” Francia said.