WINDMILL SLOWS DOWN IN SUMMER

BURGOS, Ilocos Norte, Feb. 25 – Power generated from the 150 megawatt (MW) Burgos wind farm will be lower than its maximum capacity during summer but it would remain sufficient to meet households’ power requirement.

Richard Tantoco, president and chief operating officer of the Energy Development Corp, said power generated by Burgos wind farm is expected to drop in April and May when winds are slow.

“The wind farm contributes to power supply generation from November towards the end of March but winds are expected to slow down in April and May. We could still generate power but not the full 150 MW,” he said during a visit at the wind facility last week.

Tantoco, however, said construction of the 4MW solar farm in the same area where the wind power plant is erected will be completed by March.

“The solar farm will fully generate power during the sizzling summer months,” he added.

The Burgos wind farm which started its commercial operation in November is currently Southeast Asia’s biggest wind power facility.

It has 50 wind turbines with each tower equivalent to a 25-storey building. It can supply the power requirement of at least 2.2 million households.

In a related development, the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has granted the certificate of compliance (COC) of the Burgos wind farm on Feb. 9 to confirm its availment on the feed-in-tariff (FIT) rate of P8.53 per kilowatt hour (kWh) for 20 years.

It was learned that the compliance certificate was the final requirement that the wind farm developer had to secure for seeking settlement of the FIT incentives for the capacity it delivered to the power grid since its operation.

It was reported that the reckoning date for FIT payments for EDC shall be anchored on the certificate of endorsement (COE) earlier bequeathed by the DOE to the project in which the declared commercial commissioning of the two-phased wind plant was November 5, 2014. (Freddie G. Lazaro /PIA- 1 Ilocos Norte)