PILILLA, Rizal—LT Group Inc., the holding company of tycoon Lucio Tan, is in talks to buy a stake in a 72-megawatt wind power project in this province, an energy executive said Wednesday.
Former energy secretary Vince Perez, now chairman of Alternergy Philippines Holdings Corp., said his company was in talks with the LT Group for a possible stake in the planned 72-MW Sembrano wind project, which would span the towns of Pillilla in Rizal and Mabitac and Pakil in Laguna.
“We’re in talks with them because they also have land there. They want to get into power,” Perez said, referring to the LT Group.
LT Group through Absolut Distillers Inc. ventured into the energy sector in 2015, by setting up a 2-megawatt solar power plant and a biomass facility in Batangas.
Perez led the inauguration Wednesday of the 54-megawatt wind farm project in Barangay Halayhayin, Pililla, which was built by unit Alternergy Wind One Corp. at a cost of $145 million.
Perez said a new 72-MW wind farm would be built as an expansion of the existing 54-MW project by Alternergy Sembrano Wind Corp. The new project would extend to two adjacent towns of Laguna province.
“The limitation is the grid but we have Alternergy Sembrano Wind Corp. We have declared commerciality on that for 72 MW. But we will just wait for the next administration to come up with the guidelines for bidding of FIT 3 [third phase of feed-in tariff],” Perez said.
Perez said Alternergy’s recently completed Pililla wind farm became a new tourist destination in Rizal, with several wind turbines visible on a clear day from Antipolo and from Laguna across Laguna Lake.
The new wind project was undertaken by project company Alternergy Wind One Corp. The project delivers enough power to supply the requirements of 66,000 households in Rizal.
Each tower, supplied by Gamesa of Pamplona, Spain, generates 2 MW of wind power and measures 125 meters tall, or equivalent to a 33-story building.
“The key thing is…this was pure non-resource project, meaning they [banks] took faith in us and we’re very grateful to our lenders,” Perez said.
Perez and his team also pioneered the development of Bangui Bay wind farm in Ilocos Norte, the first wind power plant in Southeast Asia. He later sold his stake in the Bangui wind project to Ayala Corp.
The Pililla wind farm achieved successful completion in June 2015, without any grid constraint or congestion to Metro Manila, the main power load in Luzon, via a 10-kilometer transmission line to Manila Electric Co.’s distribution network.
It recently secured a certificate of compliance under the feed-in-tariff scheme, allowing the project to receive a fixed rate of P7.40 per kilowatt-hours for 20 years.
