Ambuklao hydroelectric power plant has turned 61 this month but thanks to Aboitiz and its Norwegian partner, the icon shows renewed vigor after three years of rehabilitation.
Nestled in Bokod, Benguet, the dam is 36 kilometers northeast of Baguio City, still sporting its robust look when it was completed in 1956 by Guy F. Atkinson Company of San Francisco, USA based on the design of Harza Engineering of Chicago (now Montgomery Harza) and the Widmark & Platzer Company of Sweden after breaking ground six years earlier.
For Manny Rubio, SN Power of Norway president and chief executive, reviving the iconic energy project that heralded the term of the late President Ramon Magsaysay in 1957 is momentous, given that Ambuklao Dam started to degenerate after the July 1990 earthquake until it finally ceased producing electricity in 1999 from damaged equipment and heavy siltation.
“Perhaps we can say we made our own little history here, but for the most part we are just happy to bring Ambuklao back to life after 12 years,” he said.
As designed, the 129-meter high dam, 452 m at its crest with a 124-m spillway, had a reservoir extending back 11 kilometer while three 25-megawatt Francis horizontal shaft turbine generators made by General Electric produced 75 MW of capacity for the Luzon grid.
Ambuklao started to supply the Manila Electric Company 41 MW in 1956 when the picturesque 25-MW Maria Cristina hydroelectric power plant was put up in Lanao.
Amid increasing power demand at the time, Meralco was selling annually 917,000 megawatt-hours and with only 185,000 MWh delivered by Ambuklao, the utility decided to set up its 25-MW Rockwell power plant in 1958 in Makati.
Tapping Ambuklao’s abundant waterflow, the 100-MW Binga hydroelectric power plant, 19 km downstream, was commissioned in 1959 for a combined 175 MW to the national grid.
But the oldest hydro was yet to see better days after failed attempts to put it back in shape, when a consortium was formed in December 2007 by Cebu-based Aboitiz Group and Norway SN Power of Statkraft and Norfund, acquiring Angat and Binga for $325 million.
“We knew from the start that our work was cut out for us. First, we had to adopt a different strategy to engage our community stakeholders, win social acceptability of our projects, and ensure the sustainability of our business. The facilitated dialogue process sponsored by the World Bank also provided an effective framework for continued communication with our stakeholders,” Rubio said.
He said Ambuklao’s recommissioning hurdled technical and logistical hurdles on top of inhospitable weather when work was overtaken by Typhoon Pepeng (Parma) in 2009 bringing in record inflows at both dams while triggering landslides.
Last May 17, a turbine turned in Ambuklao again and on June 1, the plant was synchronized with the grid and commercial operations resumed.
“Now, we are looking forward to full operations. After all, a project is said to be really complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it,” Rubio said.
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