Triconti plans wind farm in Nabas, Aklan

NEW WIND energy player Triconti ECC Renewables Corp. is planning a 75- megawatt ( MW) wind farm in Nabas, Aklan that it targets to complete by 2021, a company official said.

Theo C. Sunico, Triconti vice- president for operations, said initially the company was planning to build the project in three phases of 25- MW each, but it had secured regulatory approval for the bigger capacity.

“Before we’re looking at three phases, but now the move that we’re going towards [is] 75 MW because of development of technology and scale na ang hinahanap ng mga partners

namin (our partners are looking for scale),” he told reporters.

Triconti was cleared in July 2017 to conduct a study on the project’s impact on the existing transmission grid, based on data from the Department of Energy.

“We recently got approval for GIS (grid impact study) for the increased capacity of 75 MW, so now so we’re starting to get the data (for a bigger project),” he said.

Mr. Sunico said the company was pushing through with the project even after pronouncements from policy makers there would be no more guaranteed feed-in-tariff for wind energy.

“Right now, our target is PSA (power supply agreement),” he said.

Mr. Sunico said the market is available for more wind capacity but possible off-takers were waiting for the outcome of the different pending bills in Congress, including one on competitive selection process (CSP), as well as regulations from the Energy Regulatory Commission on CSP, renewable portfolio standards and green energy option.

Asked about the decision to choose wind technology, Mr. Sunico said: “What we’ve seen that given the load profile of those areas (in the Visayas) it meets the peak and midmerit (requirement).”

Based on experience in European countries, he noted wind energy has greater capacity to scale up a project.

“Wind is a little bit more flexible and a little bit consistent,” he said, adding wind and solar complement each other. “From what we’ve seen, when the wind is low, solar availability is high, and vice versa.”

Mr. Sunico said the company is open to venture into solar, but its “key competency” is wind technology. Triconti is one of the international partners of Energy Competence Centre GmbH (ECC), a renewable energy group based in Berlin, Germany.

“By 2021, we want to focus on Nabas first, but then in terms [of our] pipeline under development, it’s between [about[ 200 MW [and] 300 MW, maybe until about 2025,” he said.