Asian Alcohol mulls wind power project in Negros Occidental

MANILA, Philippines - Asian Alcohol Corp. (AAC), a unit of the Lucio Tan Group (LTG), is looking at the possibility of putting up a wind project in its facility in Negros Occidental, a ranking company official said.

Gerardo Tee, the overall-in-charge of the LTG distillery operations, said AAC is undertaking a study to put up renewable energy (RE) projects in its distillery in Negros Occidental.

One RE project being considered is a wind farm in the area because the “wind speed is very encouraging.”

“The AAC wind farm is still being studied. So nothing concrete there yet. It’s just something that we can embark on if the conditions are ripe,” Tee said in a text message yesterday.

AAC, a unit under Tanduay Distillers Inc., the liquor company under LTG, has a 10-hectare plant in Negros Occidental, the second biggest distillery in the Philippines.

Plant facilities include aging facilities and a modern wastewater treatment plant which converts distillery waste into biogas energy for its power requirements.

Tee noted there are no definite plans yet on the capacity of the wind farm.

“Normally, one wind turbine is two MW (megawatts) to five MW. It varies depending on the technology and your power needs,” he said.

“Two MW per turbine, but we have yet to check the area on how many turbines we can do in AAC,” he added.

LTG has been pouring in investments in the RE sector as part of the group’s push to significantly reduce their carbon footprint.

During the launch of Absolut Distillers Inc.’s (ADI) new bioethanol plant on Tuesday, Tee said the firm is planning to invest at least half a billion pesos for a sugar mill and co-generation plant in its facility in Lian, Batangas.

Last March, ADI inaugurated its P189-million, two-MW solar plant in the same Batangas facility, which supplies 40 percent of the alcohol distillery’s power requirements.