PetroEnergy Resources Corp. said Tuesday its board approved the realignment of the use of P168-million proceeds from its stock rights offering to other renewable energy projects.
PetroEnergy said in a disclosure to the stock exchange it would reallocate the P167,669,788 SRO proceeds “for the funding of various prospective renewable energy power projects in the pipeline.”
The company did not disclose the RE projects, but company officials said they include solar projects in Luzon and the Visayas.
The balance of the SRO proceeds were initially allocated for the 20-megawatt Tarlac Solar Power Project Phase 2, 14-MW Phase 2 of the Nabas Wind Power Project and the 10-MW to 20-MW Puerto Princesa Solar Power Project.
“The reallocation will allow flexibility in funding multiple projects in the pipeline, including the NWPP-2 and the PPSPP,” PetroEnergy said.
PetroEnergy vice president Francisco Delfin Jr. earlier said they were looking at an expansion target of 100 MW of new solar projects in the near term, and about 300 MW to 400 MW in the next three to four years.
“We never declared or claimed wanting to be the biggest energy company in the Philippines. We have always been driven by our goal of making sure that each project will become very profitable at the level of risk and capital that our principals are willing to bear,” Delfin said.
Delfin said that over the long-term, PERC is betting on offshore wind to scale up renewable energy generation.
“Obviously, they don’t have the limitations on size and accessibility that large-scale solar do. They also have more areas available for development unlike geothermal,” he said.
PetroGreen Energy Corp., the renewable energy unit of PERC, is studying the development of up to 4,000 MW of offshore wind power projects based on data from the Department of Energy.
It is looking at putting up a 2,000-MW offshore wind project north of Ilocos Norte, 1,000 MW offshore wind project in the provinces of Occidental Mindoro and Batangas and 500 MW to 1,000 MW offshore wind project in Iloilo and Guimaras.
Delfin said the offshore wind projects would be a long-term process as rules are still being put in place.
“Certainly offshore wind is competitive now in Europe, in the US and parts of Asia, but they are not yet competitive at this point in the Philippines. We have that opportunity, a window in which both the rules are to be set in place, the pre-feasibility period, as well as the time for technology improvement to make the capital cost of moisture, wind turbines, much more competitive in our country,” he said.
The construction cost of offshore wind in the international market went down to about $3 to $4 million per MW. Bloomberg Finance predicts that it will be further reduced over the next five to ten years.
“It’s too early to make actual cost comparison with the Philippines. We wait these technological improvements to lower the cost as they are relevant to the Philippine setting,” Delfin said.