OFFICIALS of the Department of Energy (DOE) in the Visayas said close to 100 megaWatts (mW) of green-energy power plants are set to go on stream in the region in the next two years, as concerns for additional capacity heightened with the recent spate of brownouts hitting the region.
The biomass-fueled plants in Panay and Negros combine for 40 mW, an 8-mW wind farm in Guimaras expandable to 50 mW and the 20-mW Nasulo geothermal power plant project in Negros Oriental are set for completion by 2011 and 2013.
DOE Visayas field officer Antonio Labios said these capacities will greatly help the region as it braces for another round of power shortages by 2014 or 2015.
“We need to plan this early, as it will take two to three years to build a new power plant,” Labios said.
The DOE estimates that the more than 500 mW of new power coming in this year and next year will be evened out by increasing demand for power in the region by 2015.
Earlier, an official from the Cebu Energy Development Corp. (CEDC) said the company is planning to build the fourth 82-mW coal-fired plant in its complex in Toledo City.
Edecio Satina, vice president for operations of CEDC, said they are in “deep into the study” for a fourth plant and that the company’s board of directors is keen on making additional investment. He said their facility in Toledo, in Cebu’s western coast, was initially designed for five 82-mW plants. The company decided to build only three plants considering the demand for power in the gird, he said.
“We will make that decision by late 2010 or early 2011 so we can finish the plants by 2013 and 2014— in time when Cebu needs [additional] power once again,” Satina told reporters.
CEDC, a consortium of Taiwan’s Formosa Heavy Industries, Metrobank’s Global Power, Aboitiz Power and Vivant Corp., is test-running its first two 82-mW plants. A third unit is set for commissioning late 2010.
Cebu and Central Philippines went into another spate of brownouts last week as thinning reserves were paired with plants conking out all over the grid.
Along with CEDC, two 100-mW coal-fired power plants of Kepco-SPC is also set to start operating by late 2010 and in 2011.
The Visayan Electric Co., which serves most of Metro Cebu, was forced to shed as much as 150 mW out of its peak demand of 380 mW on Wednesday and implemented two-hour rotational brownouts to various feeders in the metropolis.
Satina said the Visayas is projected by the DOE to grow its energy demand by 6 percent, but actual numbers can grow by as much as 9 percent. Cebu, he said, is growing by double digits.
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