CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—The Aboitiz Power Corp. (APC) has announced plans of building hydroelectric plants to help mitigate the projected power-supply shortage in Mindanao even as the company junked proposals to build a nuclear-power plant in the Philippines’ second largest island.
APC president Erramon I. Aboitiz said the company is now aggressively building more hydroelectric plants in the island in response to the need for the island’s increased power-generating capacity. Mindanao has been dealing with power shortages the past year.
Aboitiz said APC’s vigorous push for more hydroelectric plants is needed to help push for more renewable-energy sources that are environment-friendly.
Two of these hydroelectric plants, which will generate of total of 30 megawatts, will be completed in 2013. These are located in the Sita and Simod Rivers in the southern Bukidnon municipality of Kitaotao, said APC vice president Sebastian Lacson.
Lacson said APC sees the huge potential and viability of hydroelectric plants to solve another impending power crisis in Mindanao because of the abundance of rivers in the island.
He also revealed that the APC is planning to build 55 such plants all over Mindanao.
Aboitiz also junked proposals for APC to build a nuclear plant in Mindanao, saying the demand is not enough to justify the cost of building such plant. He said that a nuclear power plant costs from $6 million to $8 million to produce a megawatt of power, adding that 10 years is the minimum amount of time it will take to train personnel to properly operate and maintain a nuclear-power plant.
“I could be wrong, but because of the scale, the amount, the size you have to build, it’s very hard to build it in Mindanao,” he said in a statement.
He said that the minimum capacity for a nuclear plant is 1,000 megawatts (MW) to 1,500 MW.
“How can we put it in Mindanao when the whole Mindanao peak load is only about 1,300 MW?” he asked.
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines said that peak load in Mindanao averages at 1,000 MW.
Aboitiz said that if the government is bent on building a nuclear power plant, the best place for it is Luzon, which has a peak load of 5,449 MW against 7,745 MW in available capacity.
Business leaders in Mindanao had earlier said that nuclear power should be an option to wean the island from overdependence on hydropower.
Vicente Lao, chairman of the Mindanao Electric Power Alliance, said the island might need to tap nuclear power as an important source of clean, cheap and efficient energy to solve the problem of power shortage.
Lao said most countries in the world have long been able to use nuclear power safely and the Philippines must seriously consider tapping this clean source of cheap energy.
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