Manila Standard Today
By Robert A. Evora | Nov. 17, 2014 at 12:01am
CALAPAN CITY, Oriental Mindoro—The Department of Energy and officials here have agreed to support the proposal of a manpower company to energize Mindoro through a P3-billion submarine cable to fill the growing demands for electricity on this island.
Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said his department “welcomes new players in the industry” when informed that DMCI Power Corp. had expressed interest in providing electricity through the use of a submarine cable from a coal-fired power plant on Semirara Island in Antique.
In a letter to Oriental Mindoro Gov. Alfonso Umali Jr. that was hand-carried by former Rep. Rodolfo Valencia, national chairman of the Philippine Real Estate Practitioners, DMCI president Nestor Dadivas said his company could install “a 69-kilovolt submarine cable that could carry 50 megawatts of electricity within 18 months after the issuance of a notice to proceed.”
Umali said there was no problem with DMCI’s proposal as long as the coal-fired power plant was not based in the province.
“If it’s an additional power source we welcome it,” second district Rep. Reynaldo Umali, chairman of the House energy committee, said.
Valencia said the proposal of DMCI Power Corp. to connect Mindoro to a 13-kilometer submarine cable was “not only environment-friendly but doable since it could only be installed in 18 to 20 months with no cost to the province.”
He said that out of the plant’s rated generation capacity of 50 megawatts, DMCI was willing to share 15 to 20 megawatts of electricity to Oriental Mindoro.
“If there’s a need for more, DMCI could give more power,” Valencia said.
The 50-megawatt coal-fired power plant is already in place on Semirara, where a 13-kilometer submarine cable will be tapped to take electricity to either Bulalacao town in Oriental Mindoro or to San Jose municipality in Occidental Mindoro.
“The high cost of that P3-billion submarine cable that DMCI will spend is nothing compared to the benefits the Mindoro people will get from this power project,” Petilla said.
Dadivas said the high cost of power could be reduced by P3 to P5 per kilowatt hour “without worries over environmental issues.”
Semirara Island, where the Philippines’ largest coal reserves are located, is “capable and eager to produce sufficient, reliable, and continuous capacity that the province can avail of without worries of environmental issues that have been associated, although wrongly, with coal-fired power plants,” Dadivas said. source
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