Mindanao on ‘acute’ power situation

TO hard-up more power supply for the Mindanao grid by 2015, the AboitizPower Corp. announced that construction of ongoing several projects can make it to given target.

Benjamin A. Cariaso Jr., Therma South president and chief operating officer, in a statement said Mindanao is now experiencing acute power shortage on a daily basis and is expected to worsen with the coming summer months and the ensuing low rates in Lake Lanao.

Therma South is a subsidiary of AboitizPower.

Cariaso said with a pledge to aid the problem of power shortage the company has committed P35 billion in new investments to add more capacity to the Mindanao grid.

He said among the ongoing construction projects include the Subsidiary Therma South Inc., which is building a 300-MW, 24-hour seven days a week baseload coal power plant at the southern part of Davao City.

He said the ongoing construction have also provided job employment to almost a thousand workers in the construction sites and expected to escalate the manpower in the next few months.

Cariaso gave emphasis to their host barangay and local government units as well as various government agencies for the support to make their committed completion in 2015.

“This (newest) power plant will hopefully bring a long-term solution to ongoing power crisis, by providing 300-MW of reliable baseload power to Mindanao power users thru the electric cooperatives which have and will sign up with us,” he said.

Meanwhile other subsidiary, Hedcor Inc., is moving full-swing on the construction of its Tudaya 1 and 2 run-of-river hydro power plants, with more than 300 workers on the two sites in barangays Astorga and Sibulan, both in Sta. Cruz Davao del Sur. The two facilities will combine for 13 megawatts of reliable and renewable power. The two facilities will be completed by 2014.

Hedcor COO Rene B. Ronquillo stressed that “aside from our goal of supplying renewable power to our customers, we have given livelihood opportunities and development projects to our far-flung host communities, which make us extra proud of our project.”

Ronquillo said the new power company is also in the planning stages of several other projects that will add more renewable capacity to the grid in the medium term.

He said the Therma South is using the latest circulating fluidized-bed combustion technology to ensure the clean coal power plant will meet stringent government health and environment standards.

Ronquillo emphasized, their company had been trusted for their 30 years of leadership and expertise on the run-of-river hydro power technology in which they are currently supplying 155 MW of renewable power to Luzon and Mindanao. (Nicole J. Managbanag)