Oriental Mindoro offshore wind farm eyed for operations by 2029

SINGAPORE-BASED The Blue Circle Pte. Ltd. is planning to start the commercial operations of its 1,200-megawatt (MW) offshore wind project in Oriental Mindoro by 2029, a company official said.

“We are aiming to connect to a substation — that’s still prospective — and that is planned for December 2026. Whereas, we’re talking about a COD (commercial operation date) in maybe 2029,” The Blue Circle Development Manager Amaury Brucker said in a forum last week.

The Blue Circle and its partner CleanTech Global Renewables, Inc. obtained in 2021 their wind energy service contract for the offshore wind project.

“We have an ongoing system impact study for this project and a wind measurement campaign,” Mr. Brucker said.

System impact study is conducted to determine the adequacy and capability of the grid to accommodate the new connection.

“There are some exclusions that we’re already considering because in the Philippines, there’s a lot of biodiversity, which is not something you see in a lot of other countries,” Mr. Brucker said.

“Overall, we’ve noticed that for this project, there’s so far fairly low impact on a lot of aspects — marine traffic, shipping lanes, fishing, etc. — so quite favorable for development,” he said.

Mr. Brucker said that most components will come via sea transport to a nearby port that serves as a logistic hub.

“It’s something that we are also looking into on our end, but of course, we will require support, especially during the construction phase, because here, we’re talking about massive quantities components that you need to store for at least a couple of years,” Mr. Brucker said.

Founded in 2013, The Blue Circle identifies, develops, finances, owns, and operates utility scale wind and solar power projects in geographies of the Asia-Pacific region.

“Most of our activities these days in the Philippines — now, one of the reasons why, in particular, [is] because the framework… is very favorable for investment and development in general, especially for offshore and onshore wind,” Mr. Brucker said.

The Blue Circle and CleanTech has also been awarded the 100-MW Kalayaan project in Laguna. The construction for the project started last year, Mr. Brucker said.

To date, the Department of Energy has awarded 82 offshore wind project service contracts with an estimated total capacity of 63.36 gigawatts (GW).

According to Energy Undersecretary Rowena Cristina L. Guevara, at least 10 offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of 6.72 GW are expected to produce electricity by 2028. —