Asian Alcohol eyes wind power

By: Riza T. Olchondra Philippine Daily Inquirer 12:30 AM October 22nd, 2015

The Lucio Tan Group is considering putting up a wind power project through Negros Occidental-based Asian Alcohol Corp. as part of the firm’s long-term commitment to invest in renewable energy (RE).

Gerardo Tee, who is in charge of the Lucio Tan Group’s distillery operations, told reporters that the group had a distillery in Negros Occidental which had the potential for wind power generation.

“We will check what we can do with a wind farm,” Tee said. “It’s just something that we can embark on if the conditions are ripe. Any RE project can be considered.”

The company has yet to decide on the project capacity. This will vary depending on the technology and power needs, Tee said.

“We have yet to check the area on how many turbines we can do in Asian Alcohol,” he said, adding that a wind turbine installation may be able to generate 2 megawatts (MW) to 5 MW of wind power.

Earlier this year, Lucio K. Tan Jr., son of taipan Lucio Tan, also said Asian Alcohol was considering investing in wind power. At the time, he said “distillery operations are being reinvented.” He said the distillery had been actively looking for other markets and income sources to reduce its reliance on parent firm Tanduay Distiller Inc. (TDI).

Asian Alcohol is the second biggest distillery in the Philippines located in Negros Occidental. It has distillation process that uses molasses, yeast, water and other ingredients.

The company Asian Alcohol has a 10-hectare plant in Negros, which is the center of the country’s sugar industry.

Plant facilities include a modern wastewater treatment plant which converts distillery waste into biogas energy for its power requirements. It has a daily rated capacity of 210,000 liters of quality ethyl alcohol. It sells 100 percent of its output to Tanduay Distillers. This output comprises 70 percent of TDI’s ethyl alcohol requirements.

Asian Alcohol is a separate company from Absolut Distillers Inc. (ADI), which is based in Batangas and is also involved in RE projects. Both companies are under the Tanduay arm of the LT Group.

ADI has a bioethanol plant, a 2-MW solar power plant that was put up early this year, and a biogas producer that has been operating since the 1990s.

For the bioethanol facility, ADI has secured off-take contracts with oil firms Seaoil and Flying V. The bioethanol facility is expected to produce about three million liters per month. Ethanol is used in the gasoline blend and comes from agricultural crops such as sugar. The Biofuels Act of 2006 mandated a 10-percent ethanol blend in gasoline. ADI is also set to develop a sugar mill and cogeneration power plant that will complement the operations of its bioethanol facility in Lian, Batangas province.