Yuchengco-led PetroWind Energy Inc. has been awarded as one of the ‘top community care companies’ in the 2020 Asia Corporate Excellence and Sustainability Awards (ACES) held recently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
As reckoned by Yrel Ventura, environmental and community relations manager of PetroGreen Energy Corporation, “this award honors the commitment of the YGC (Yuchengco Group of Companies) and our partners to uplift the communities where we operate and also testifies to the successful collaboration we have forged with the local governments and communities in several health, education and livelihood initiatives.”
The company executive added the recognition “will spur us to scale up our efforts to benefit more stakeholders and to ensure positive lasting impact.”
The ACES Awards extend premier recognition to individuals and firms in Asia “for corporate leadership and corporate social responsibility under several categories,” – and these are in sustainability, green initiative, green innovation and community care, to name a few.
In honoring PetroWind, ACES stipulated that the Yuchengco firm is among the companies in the Asian region that “enriched the communities through various outreach initiatives.”
At the same time, the Philippine renewable energy firm was cited on its resolve at epitomizing “the mission and values of an organization that demonstrate exemplary and active citizenship in promoting the wellbeing of society at large.”
PetroWind is a joint venture of PetroGreen Energy Corp. and EEI Power Corp of the Philippines; with BCPG Public Company Ltd. of Thailand.
The firm is the corporate vehicle that owns and operates the 36-megawatt Nabas wind farm in Aklan province, and it is a renewable energy facility sited close to the island-paradise of Boracay.
The power facility started commercial operations in 2015; and the 14MW expansion of the wind project is already being advanced by the Yuchengco group to its construction phase.
“The Nabas wind power facility has become an important eco-tourism destination in the region, being perched on the hills of Nabas and Malay across; and overlooking Boracay,” the company noted.
On the blueprinted expansion of the wind farm, PetroWind cited that this achieved a major milestone in
May this year, following the issuance of its amended certificate of commerciality by the Department of Energy, thereby allowing it to already proceed to construction for Nabas-2 and then to reach eventual commercial operations.
Paul Elmer Morala, assistant vice president for power operations of PetroGreen, nevertheless qualified that “actual development of the project had to be paced due to the Covid-19 pandemic but when resumed, it is expected to generate additional employment during construction.”
Further, the expanded facility will shore up the royalty and tax payments that shall be remitted to the government, including the host local government units in Aklan; and will also stimulate business opportunities for local suppliers.
“We intend to have the Nabas-2 operational by 2022,” Morala said, emphasizing that this is aligned also with the completion of the Cebu-Negros-Panay interconnection improvement project of system operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.