The Bangui Wind Farm is a

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

in Bangui, Ilocos Norte,

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. The wind farm uses 20 units of high Vestas V82 1.65 MW

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s, arranged in a single row stretching along a shoreline of Bangui Bay, facing the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...

. Phase I of the NorthWind power project in Bangui Bay consisted of 15 wind turbines, each with a maximum production capacity of 1.65 MW of electric power, making a total of 24.75 MW. These 15 on-shore turbines are placed apart, each high, with long blades, with a rotor diameter of and a wind swept area of . Phase II was completed in August 2008, and added five more of the same wind turbines, bringing the total maximum capacity to 33 MW.

Ayala Corporation Ayala Corporation (, formerly ''Ayala y Compañía''; ) is the publicly listed holding company for the diversified interests of the Ayala Group. Founded in the Philippines by Domingo Róxas and Antonio de Ayala during Spanish colonial rule, ...

energy platform AC Energy, which already holds the controlling shares in Bangui Wind Farm as of 2021, has announced its intent to acquire 100% of the shares of NorthWind in order to boost their renewable energy portfolio, pending approvals from oversight entities like the

Philippine Competition Commission The Philippine Competition Commission (PhCC) is an independent, quasi-judicial body formed to implement the Philippine Competition Act (Republic Act No. 10667). The PhCC aims to promote and maintain market competition within the Philippines by ...

Location

The NorthWind Bangui Bay Project is located in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

of Bangui, Ilocos Norte,

, at the northwest tip of

Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...

island. The turbines face the sea from where the prevailing wind blows towards the land. Its location along the shore is optimal, due to a lack of

windbreak A windbreak (shelterbelt) is a planting usually made up of one or more rows of trees or shrubs planted in such a manner as to provide shelter from the wind and to protect soil from erosion. They are commonly planted in hedgerows around the ed ...

s and limited terrain roughness. The site consists of 20 Vestas Wind Systems stretching over the shoreline of the bay. The location of the Philippines near the Asia-Pacific monsoon belt is ideal for installing wind turbines. State meteorological agency

Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (, abbreviated as PAGASA , which means "hope" as in the Tagalog word ''pag-asa'') is the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) agency of the P ...

states that the Philippines has a mean average of about 31 watts per square meter (W/m²) of wind power density.

History

1996 NREL study

In 1996, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducted a wind resource analysis and mapping study. It concluded that various areas in the

are ideal for wind power installation. These areas include

Bangui Bangui (; or Bangî in Sango language, Sango, formerly written Bangi in English) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities in the Central African Republic, largest city of the Central African Republic. It was established as a Fren ...

and

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populous municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...

towns in

Ilocos Norte Ilocos Norte (), officially the Province of Ilocos Norte (; ), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region. It is located in the northwest corner of Luzon island, bordering Cagayan and Apayao to t ...

Batanes Batanes, officially the Province of Batanes (; Ilocano: ''Probinsia ti Batanes''; , ), is an archipelagic province in the Philippines, administratively part of the Cagayan Valley region. It is the northernmost province in the Philippines, an ...

and Babuyan Islands, which are north of

and the higher interior terrain of

Mindoro Mindoro is the seventh largest and eighth-most populous island in the Philippines. With a total land area of 10,571 km2 ( 4,082 sq.mi ), it has a population of 1,408,454, as of the 2020 census. It is located off the southwestern coast of ...

Samar Samar ( ) is the third-largest and seventh-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 1,909,537 as of the 2020 census. It is located in the eastern Visayas, which are in the central Philippines. The island is divided in ...

Leyte Leyte ( ) is an island in the Visayas group of islands in the Philippines. It is eighth-largest and sixth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 2,626,970 as of 2020 census. Since the accessibility of land has been ...

Panay Panay is the sixth-largest and fourth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total land area of and a total population of 4,542,926, as of 2020 census. Panay comprises 4.4 percent of the entire population of the country. The City of Il ...

Negros Negros (, , ) is the fourth largest and third most populous island in the Philippines, with a total land area of . The coastal zone of the southern part of Negros is identified as a site of highest marine biodiversity importance in the Coral Tr ...

Cebu Cebu ( ; ), officially the Province of Cebu (; ), is a province of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas region, and consists of a main island and 167 surrounding islands and islets. The coastal zone of Cebu is identified as a ...

Palawan Palawan (, ), officially the Province of Palawan (; ), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of . The capital and largest c ...

and eastern

Mindanao Mindanao ( ) is the List of islands of the Philippines, second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and List of islands by population, seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the ...

Development by NorthWind

The study led to the inception of the wind farm project. NorthWind Power Development Corp. developed (and maintains and operates) the project, while Vestas Wind Systems, a Danish firm, supplied the wind turbine-generator units (WTGs) for the site, similar to those already found in

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. The project was to have been developed in three phases, with Phase I of the project inaugurated on June 18, 2005. Engineer Niels Jacobsen, president and chief executive of the Northwind Power Development Corp., started work on the 24.75-megawatt project in 1999. Ratified by the NorthWind Power Development Corp and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development through the World Bank Prototype Carbon Fund, the Northwind Bangui Bay Project was the first project in the Philippines to have the Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA) under the Clean Development Mechanism. The Bangui Bay Project is also the first Philippine recipient of the Carbon Emission Reduction Certificates (CER's) from the executive board of the

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN process for negotiating an agreement to limit dangerous climate change. It is an international treaty among countries to combat "dangerous human interference with th ...

. Phase I consisted of 15 turbines, placed 326 meters apart, was completed on May 7, 2005, generating 24.74

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor o ...

. An additional 5 turbines brought the capacity to 33 megawatts, which was transmitted to an electrical substation in Laoag City. Connected to the Luzon Grid, the windmills supply 40% of Ilocos Norte's electricity needs. Each windmill is tall, with long blades.

Commercial operation

The project began commercial operation in 2005, eventually becoming a major tourist site for Bangui. In 2006, the project produced a 5% discount of the weighted average price in the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) or a generated savings of approximately US$1.4 million (PhP 70 million) for the INEC electricity consumers. The project cost for Phase I amounted to US$23 million.

Ownership by the Ayala Group

AC Energy, the listed energy platform of the Ayala Group, eventually took control of Northwind and of the Bangui Wind Farm in 2017, acquiring a total of 67.79% of Northwind stocks. In 2021, AC Energy announced its intent to acquire 100% of the shares of NorthWind in order to boost the renewable energy portfolio of the Ayala Group in anticipation of its plans to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The purchase is pending approvals from Philippine government oversight entities like the

References

{{Wind farms in the Philippines Buildings and structures in Ilocos Norte Tourist attractions in Ilocos Norte Wind farms in the Philippines