PetroEnergy Resources Corp gets approvals for two clean projects

Philippines-based PetroEnergy Resources Corporation (PERC) announced last week that it has been granted the Certificate of Confirmation of Commerciality (CoCoC) by the Department of Energy (DOE) for two renewable-energy projects.

The certificates were issued to the 12-megawatt (MW) Maibarara-2 (M2) expansion geothermal project in Batangas City, which is owned and being operated by Maibarara Geothermal Inc. (MGI), and the 50-MW Tarlac solar facility in Tarlac City, owned and being developed by PetroSolar Corp. (PSC).

The CoCoC means that the projects have complied with the requirements for conversion from predevelopment stage to the development stage under the feed-in-tariff (FiT) system.

MGI and PSC are 65-percent and 56-percent owned subsidiaries, respectively, of PetroGreen Energy Corp. (PGEC), PERC’s 90-percent owned subsidiary and renewables energy arm.

A Certificate of Additional Investment was also issued to MGI’s M2 project, which involves the installation of a new 12-MW unit, adjacent to the existing 20-MW Maibarara-1 (M1) unit, and is expected to add at least 95,000 MWh to MGI’s annual generation.

MGI President Francisco Delfin Jr. said:

“We opted to increase Maibarara-2’s gross capacity from 10 MW to 12 MW after the successful flow-test of well MB-15RD, and the release of an independent resource validation by California-based Geothermal Science Inc., which confirmed more than sufficient reserves for combined M1 and M2 power generation for 25 years.”

PERC and PSC President Milagros V. Reyes said: 

“This capacity increase is expected to enhance MGI’s revenues. We aim for M2 unit to be online by the third quarter of 2017. The commerciality affirmation not only converts the solar-service contract from predevelopment to development/commercial stage, giving us the go-signal to proceed full blast toward development, but it also marks the first step for our Tarlac solar project toward eventual FiT qualification by the first quarter of 2016.”

“With two new RE projects declared commercial and expected to be commissioned in 2016 and 2017, PERC’s expansion and transition to power generation is proceeding deliberately as planned.”