Petrowind did no harm to the Northwest Panay Protected Area

NABAS, Aklan- The Petrowind Energy Inc. (PWEI) based here, has maintained that they did no harm in the Northwest Panay Protected Natural Park.

In a familiarization tour with some members of the Aklan media on Monday, Vanessa Peralta, AVP for Communications at Petrowind, said that from the start, they had been coordinating with the different government agencies to ensure that their wind farm project was in order.

The Northwest Panay Peninsula stretches the towns of Nabas, Malay and Buruanga in Aklan and Pandan and Libertad in Antique. It covers around 12,000 hectares.

“As of this time, we have not received any communications coming from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) indicating that we did anything wrong or committed any environmental violations,” she said.

Yrel V. Ventura, Senior Manager for Environment and Community Relations, said that an environmental group filed a complaint with the Sanguniang Bayan of Malay recently. The complaint triggers the local government of Malay to stop providing necessary permits for the works of the Phase 2 Project of Petrowind.

“In September, the said environmental group alleged that the Napaan River in Malay is silted. We checked the river on October 1, and we found the river produces crystal clear water. We investigated the possible cause of the discoloration of the river, and we found there is ongoing road construction nearby,” Ventura said.

“There is no evidence that we have damaged the environment. We only occupy a small percent (.05 percent) of the overall area of the Northwestern Panay Peninsula, a protected area.We are heavily investing in the protection of the environment in the course of the establishment of the wind farm,” he said.

In February of this year, Petrowind received a P1.8 billion loan from the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) to fund their Phase 2 project. The said money will be used for the construction of six units of wind farms, three each in the adjoining towns of Nabas and Malay.

Phase 1, which started operational in 2015, is composed of 18 wind farms producing 36 MW for the needed electricity supply of Panay Island through the National Grid Corporations of the Philippines (NGCP). Under the law, the NGCP has exclusive rights to distribute the power supply generated by renewable energy, which includes the wind farm.

For his part, Jayson Abaniel, Petrowind Project Manager, said that Phase 2, when completed, would boost the available power supply on Panay Island.