POWER industry players are pushing for the balance of power supply mix in Mindanao with the possible increase in the prices of electricity in the coming years with the entry of more coal and oil fired power plants.
“What we want to advocate for Mindanao is a balance of renewable energy and non-renewable energy because the power plants that will come in next year are practically fossil fuel power plants. We do not want Mindanao to suffer the consequences of Luzon and Visayas wherein the generation cost is dependent on the prices of oil and coal,” said Sergio C. Dagooc, Association of Mindanao Electric cooperatives Inc. (Amreco), during a press conference at the Grand Men Seng Hotel last week.
Of the 1,850.6 megawatts of committed projects that will be coming in the next three years, 2015 to 2017, only 105.6 MW are coming from renewable energy sources. Around 64 MW will be coming from hydropower power plants and 41.6 from biomass.
“Let us understand what the source of our electricity is, this determines our electricity rates,” said Romeo Montenegro, Mindanao Development Authority (Minda) director of investment promotions and public affairs.
He said if the source of the island’s electricity would be from diesel, it would definitely be more expensive as compared to other power sources.
Coal on the other hand, is cheaper compared to oil but much more expensive compared to other power sources like hydro electric.
In order to address this, Dagooc said due to the vast resources of Mindanao when it comes to hydropower plants, they are pushing for the development of mini hydro power plants, which they see will keep Mindanao’s electricity prices competitive.
“What Minda and Amreco wanted is, the impact of the entry of fossil fuel power plants [in the power rates] will be minimized if we develop mini hydropower plants because mini hydropower plants are the only renewable energy that can produce large quantity of capacities as compared to other renewable energy sources,” he said.
Montenegro also said they have established the One-stop Processing and Facilitation Center (OSPFC), a virtual platform that aims to accelerate and approval time of renewable power project applications in Mindanao. The center will bring down the processing time from three to five years to one to years, given that all requirements of the proponent are in place.
In the recent Mindanao Power Monitoring Committee (MPMC) report on September, the measure will prioritize a total of 157 pending renewable energy applications with an aggregate capacity of 1,699.57 MW.
A total of 115 projects are hydro power projects with a combined potential capacity of 1,129.82 MW. This is followed by 27 solar energy projects with a potential capacity of 277.5 MW, eight geothermal projects with 200 MW, and seven biomass power projects with 92.25 MW.
With the fast tracking of these renewable projects, Mindanao can be assured of a balanced energy mix of non-renewable and renewable sources the years to come.
Published in the Sun.Star Davao newspaper on October 10, 2014.
