UPC RENEWABLES
to move on the environmental side as some of the rules have changed since they did the original work .”
Connecticut-born Caffyn has spent the last few years living between Indonesia and the Philippines , but has moved to Australia to ensure things move quickly .
“ We ’ ve got a decent shot of getting planning permission within 18 months and then it ’ s really down to , ‘ are we going to be able to sell the power into Tasmania or are we going to need to have a second connector before we start delivering the power ?’
“ Either one of those options is going to take some transmission work . There ’ s some onshore work in Tasmania that needs to be done , then the whole programming for the undersea cable .”
Caffyn says UPC is agnostic on the technology , using “ whichever wind turbine or solar panel which happens to be the best and most economical at the time ”, and prides itself on supplying renewable energy at the best price possible in a socially responsible way .
UPC has enjoyed strong growth in China over recent years , and plans to continue growing this aggressively over the next 18 months . In China , UPC is constructing the Feicheng Wind Project 50MW and Kangping II and III Wind Project 98MW . French utility giant , Electricite de France ( EDF ), came in as an 80 % owner in June , 2016 .
“ That was a big deal for us ,” he says , “ because we had other investors , who were not really allowing us to grow the business properly , so we had to take them out and bring EDF in .”
In Indonesia , it has the 75MW Sidrap Wind Farm in South Sulawesi in construction , which is the country ’ s first utility scale wind farm which consists of 30 Gamesa G114 2.5MW turbines and is scheduled to begin selling power to PLN when it goes live near the end of this year .
“ That took a lot of work ,” he explains , “ because we had to educate the government and utility ( PLN ) about how Wind works . Having negotiated the first power contract for wind , Caffyn explains . “ We ’ re hoping to get three more projects into construction in Indonesia , which
66 September 2017