2 hydro plants eyed in Negros

Sunstar Iloilo
By Teresa Ellera 
Friday, March 21, 2014 

TWO companies are eyeing to put up hydropower plants with a total capacity of 6.4 megawatts in San Carlos City and at Mambukal Resort in Murcia town. 
Good Friends Hydro Resources Corp. is asking for the endorsement of the Provincial Board after they accomplished the studies and requirements and executed a development service contract with the Department of Energy to develop a run-off the river type of hydro resources power system along Bago River within the jurisdiction of San Carlos City. 
Total projected capacity of five megawatts is in store for the project with two megawatts in Barangay Prosperidad and three megawatts in Sitio Initihan, Barangay Quezon. 
Ernesto Evangelista, corporate secretary and managing director of Good Friends, in his request for endorsement to Vice Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson stated that San Carlos City Government had passed a resolution endorsing the project, which he said, would augment the needed supply of power for Visayas Region. 
Meanwhile, Hydrotec Renewables Inc. is proposing to put up a 1.4-megawatt hydropower plant at the Asia River in Mambukal Resort. 
Hanes Muller, director of Hydrotec Renewables in his letter to Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr., cited the actual survey and investigation of the flow and terrain at the site to be feasible for small hydro power project. 
The construction period will be six to eight months. The provincial government will own 100 percent of the hydro project with Hydrotec as consultant and EPC as turn-key installation contractor. 
Hydrotec cited that in 2013, the Provincial Government paid around P24 million for its electricity consumption for the Capitol offices and the Mambukal Resort. 
Based on the Renewable Energy Law, any produced hydropower electricity at Mambukal Resort could be wheeled through existing transmission lines to any government-owned facility, which would result in savings of around P9 per kilowatt. 
In a period of four years, the Provincial Government could save P24 million from electricity consumption and have additional income from the excess power sales which could be spent for other government projects, Muller further said. source