MANILA -- Politicians in Mindanao should be blamed for the recurring power blackout in the region, President Benigno Aquino III said Wednesday.
Mindanao's energy situation did not arise overnight and the solution also requires cooperation among stakeholders, which is also expected to take some time, the Chief Executive said, as he witnessed the signing of a land lease agreement between Phividec and Filinvest Development Utilities Inc. for the construction of a power generation facility in Misamis Oriental.
Aquino said the energy problems of Mindanao stemmed from the intentions of politicians to be exempted from the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 (Epira) and the region's heavy reliance on the use hydro-powered plants.
And instead of actively protecting the source of hydropower, illegal logging was allowed to continue, destroying watersheds and was compounded by the effects of climate change, he said.He said previous leaders assumed that cheap hydro power could last forever, neglecting the fact that the hydropower plants are machines that need to be maintained, improved and replaced.
"Epira abolished the system that once allowed politicians and other officials to simply undertake what was politically convenient, that is: to artificially lower electricity rates just to gear up for coming elections. But the system -- however and due to this -- has remained the same in Mindanao," Aquino said.
But with the construction of cleaner coal-powered plants in Mindanao, the President said he expects the region's energy woes to be a thing of the past.
Since taking office in 2010, Aquino said his administration immediately began making the structural changes that encouraged the private sector to come in and put up power plants.
For instance, last year, Aboitiz began a project to build two coal-fired power plants in Davao, which will provide a total of 300 megawatts. The project will be finished by late 2015, he said.
"By then, with all the projects we have lined up, we fully expect that this problem will be a thing of the past. And hopefully, the thinking that led us to this problem will also be a thing of the past," he said.
Also, the President said the Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who visited the country this week, expressed his serious intention to bring natural gas to Mindanao. The memorandums of understanding have already been signed for this project, he said.
Filinvest's Misamis Oriental project is a significant part of the long-term solution for Mindanao's energy problems, according to the President.
"This signing gives us peace of mind that the permanent solutions are being put in place. By 2016, these three plants, by themselves, will be providing 405 megawatts of coal power to the Mindanao grid. (The figures, I think, should be checked a little.) With the energy these plants will be producing, by 2016, we expect production capacity to be almost 470 megawatts above peak demand," he said.
The government, in cooperation with the private sector, not only increases Mindanao's maximum capacity but also reinforces the region's entire energy supply with more reliable and stable sources.
"We are making their energy infrastructure much more competitive. We should also not forget that in constructing these power plants, Filinvest will be injecting P29 billion to P30 billion into Mindanao's economy, while giving jobs to two thousand workers in the process," Aquino said.
Phividec and Filinvest signed a 28-year lease contract for an initial 84.4-hectare of land within the government-owned industrial state in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental. Filinvest will construct a coal-fired power plant that is expected to support Mindanao's energy needs.
Filinvest said it is adopting clean coal technology in its Misamis Oriental power plant with a circulating fluidized bed boiler. This technology reduces the sulfur dioxide emission as well as nitrogen oxide to negligible levels, thus also reducing its impact on the environment. (SDR/Sunnex) source
No comments:
Post a Comment