Consortium pursues $500-M Philippine biomass power projects

San Carlos BioPower Corp is putting up four biomass power plants with a combined capacity of 100 megawatts at a cost of $500 million.

The first 18 megawatt biomass project to be located in Iloilo with a cost of $82 million have been given the go signal by government agencies while the three others are still in various permitting processes.

The 18-MW San Carlos BioPower project is located within the San Carlos Ecozone in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental while the two other power plants will be located in Negros and Tarlac

This would be followed by the next three projects. Overall, they are looking at a time horizon of four years for the four renewable energy projects. Chinese partner Wuxi Huag Huang will supply the high pressure turbine.

The firm is a consortium of Thomas Lloyd Investment Bank of Zurich, Switzerland; renewable energy developer Bronzeoak Philippines Inc. and Biomass Holdings Inc., joint venture between listed local firm Greenergy Holdings Inc. and Cleantech Projektgesellschaft mbH.

Biomass is the single biggest shareholder of San Carlos BioPower with 65 percent equity.

Thomas Lloyd will cough up $50 million for these projects and the rest by other financial investors although project financing is designed for 70:30 loan to equity structure. Each project, however, has its own SPV company.

For more.