The original wind farm capacity of 40MW was cut in half to 20MW as stated by the PNOC-EDC (Philippine National Oil Company-
Energy Development Corporation.) The cut was attributed to high set-up cost due to the high price of steel and materials. Compounded also by the fact that they have to construct a 42 km transmission line to feed the power to the National Grid.
Even with the “capacity halving” of the planned wind farm, this is still good news. This means that the government is still pushing through with it’s plans to ween the country off of foreign oil, same with the plans of some Independent Power Producers in the country who are thinking of shifting to coal since majority of the power they produce for the National Grid runs on Bunker Fuel.
Orginal Article here
Category: Wind
November 6th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
This doesn’t make sense to me - I think I”m missing information.
Regarless of the cost of steel, a 40 MW installation must cost less than 2-times the cost of a 20 MW installation - since either configuration shares some costs that don’t double with size - like the transmission line, financial closing costs, and development costs.
So on a per unit basis, or per kWh sold, the 40 MW configuration must be cheaper, di ba? There must be something else to this story.
November 6th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Good point Nick!, I was talking to a Civil Engineer a month ago and he told me that the “Construction Season” (when construction booms because cement and other raw materials are cheap) is no longer applicable because of the high price of steel and copper… am also assuming that’s the reason why he decided to go into the drilling business instead *snicker*