Bukidnon sugar mill makes ‘sweet power’ electricity’ - SRA

Business Mirror

Published on Thursday, 18 April 2013 19:08

Written by Marvyn N. Benaning / Correspondent

A SUGAR mill in Maramag, Bukidnon, not only produces sugar but also supplies electricity to a maximum of 10 megawatts (MW) to a grid sorely in need of power.

Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) chief Gina Martin said the Crystal Sugar Co. mill in Maramag, Bukidnon, has commissioned a new high pressure boiler to upgrade its existing power generating capacity from 5 MW to 6 MW, raising its total generating capacity to a maximum of 10 MW.

“Previously, Crystal Sugar was exporting a steady of four megawatts per hour and so far from the start of the current cropping season more than 20 million kilowatts [KW] of electricity have been exported to the grid,” owner Pablo Lobregat said.

“This project has always been very low key but we are proud to be helping mitigate the power shortage in Mindanao in some way. It may be a small contribution but this ‘good news’ of the advancement of the sugar industry is being credited to the Aquino current administration,” Lobregat added.

Crystal Sugar started the commercial operation of its bagasse-fired power plant in May 2010 at a variable generating capacity of several hundred kilowatt-hours (kWh) to a couple of megawatt-hours of electricity.

The first sugar mill in the country to commercially sell its excess electricity to the grid was First Farmers Holdings Corp. in Talisay, Negros Occidental. It started operations in 2009 with a declared capacity of 8 MW.

The two mills put up the commercial co-generating capacities in response to the renewable-energy (RE) program of the government and the incentives provided by the RE Law in 2008.

“Sugar mills have the potential to export power to the grid from the burning of bagasse. There are plans of harnessing this potential, if these are tapped, it could produce about 200 MW of bio-power,” Martin said.  source