First carbon purchase with wind -- Kyoto CDM kick start

The Philippines has signed the first greenhouse gas emission reductions purchase agreement for a 25 MW wind farm project in Southeast Asia under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol. The wind farm project has a total cost of about US$35 million, with almost 90% funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). It will also be the first utility scale wind power development not only in the Philippines but also in all of Southeast Asia.

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The NorthWind Bangui Bay Project will be sited near the coastline of Bangui Bay in Ilocos Norte Province at the northern tip of Luzon. It is being built at a remote part of the Luzon grid that is plagued by expensive but unreliable power supply, mainly due to the long distance transmission of power from various generation sources. The project consists of 15, 1.65 MW Vestas units, totalling 24.75 MW. Annual energy production is estimated to be about 74.48 GWh. The project is expected to be operational by mid 2005.

All power produced will be sold to the Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative, which has the exclusive franchise to distribute electricity in the area. Project developer NorthWind Power Development Corporation will construct a 50 kilometre, 69 kV overhead transmission line to deliver the power to the grid.

The electricity produced will displace diesel-based power generation, thereby reducing carbon emissions. The certified emission reductions (CER) generated by the project will be purchased by the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF), a public/private partnership made up of six governments and 17 private companies, which authorizes the World Bank to purchase CERs from projects on behalf of the participants of the fund. Over ten years of the project's life, the PCF will buy a total of CERs targeted at 356,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).

The Philippines wind resource is estimated to have a generation potential of 70,000 MW. Considering only those areas of good to excellent wind resource, there are 47 provinces in the Philippines with at least 500 MW of wind power potential and 25 more provinces with at least 1000 MW of wind power potential.