Villages ok expansion of hydro plant

Sunstar Davao

BARANGAYS Astorga and Sibulan in Sta. Cruz town in Davao del Sur gave their consent to AboitizPower Corp.'s wholly-owned subsidiary Hedcor to build two more plants in the said town with a total capacity of 13.6 MW.

Simultaneous to the giving of consent, Hedcor with the barangay councils signed a memorandum of agreement where benefits to the host communities from the project were specified.

Dubbed as the Tudaya Hydropower Project, the Tudaya 1 Hydropower Project is proposed to be located upstream of the Sibulan Hydro A Power Plant while the Tudaya Hydropower Project is to be built below the Sibulan Hydro B Power Plant.

The exploration began in 2010, and in early 2011. Hedcor engineers started design of Tudaya 1 in Sibulan and Tudaya 2 in Astorga. Now, Hedcor is working with the permits before the construction will start.

"Dako namong kalipay ang pag-abot sa Hedcor dinhi sa among lugar (We're jubilant Hedcor came to our place)," Barangay Astorga Captain Sergio Languita said before the representatives of Hedcor and Astorga barangay council.

Astorga is the second largest barangay in Sta Cruz with a population of approximately 11,000. The benefits will start in the next few months with the community services, scholarship grants, and reforestation to their barangay. After the first operational year of the plant, they will also receive royalty from Hedcor.

Sibulan Captain Lydia Ang said, "Hedcor is indeed a blessing to us. We availed of free medical services, we have sent many children to school, we have developed our reforestation program and we received an annual royalty."

Hedcor is committed to promote clean energy and will continue to look for more potential to develop to bring it to more Filipinos.

AboitizPower is the holding company of the Aboitiz Group's investments in power generation, distribution, retail and power services. It is a major producer of Cleanergy, its brand for clean and renewable energy in the Philippines with several hydroelectric and geothermal assets in its generation portfolio, and also has non-renewable power plants located across the country.

The company owns distribution utilities that operate in high-growth areas in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on June 01, 2011.