AboitizPower announces stay on geothermal, coal-fired projects

Posted on July 08, 2016
http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Corporate&title=aboitizpower-announces-stay-on-geothermal-coal-fired-projects&id=130112

DAVAO CITY -- The Aboitiz Power Corp. has shelved plans to set up a geothermal plant as well as the expansion of its 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant at the boundaries of the city and Davao del Sur.

While not directly explaining why the plans were pushed back for another time, first Vice-President for Mindanao Manuel M. Orig said the company is currently gearing up for another geothermal plant in Indonesia.

“We are already assured that there are ready resources in Indonesia that the company can tap unlike here where we still need to explore for geothermal,” said Mr. Orig.

Early this year, Mr. Orig said that the company will only pursue the plan to put up the geothermal plant here if it is assured of a resource that can generate about 100 megawatts of power.

In 2014, the company announced plans to put up a 200-MW geothermal power plant as it explored about 20,000 hectares within the Mount Apo reservation. The company has not disclosed the result of that exercise.

The company has also postponed its plan to expand its 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant, the first new power plant to operate in Mindanao in the last 10 years.

Sebastian Arsenio R. Lacson, president of Therma South, Inc., the subsidiary that operates the power plant, said the company decided to forego the plan as it projects power supply in Mindanao to be in surplus with the operation of several new power plants, among them those of Sarangani Energy Corp. of the Alcantara Group and the SMC Global Power Holdings of the San Miguel Corp.

But Mr. Lacson did say that the company is not completely shelving the plan. “It is there, but we will not pull the trigger yet,” he added.

Based on the projection of the Department of Energy, Mindanao will have about 2,000 megawatts of power by 2019, or about 500 megawatts in surplus. At present, power growth consumption, based on government estimates, is under 7% annually. -- Carmelito Q. Francisco