AboitizPower to put up 6 hydropower plants

Monday, February 21, 2011

ABOITIZPOWER Corp. is putting up at least five hydropower plants in Mindanao and one in Luzon to supply the additional energy requirements of clients in these two areas.

Sebastian Lacson, chief reputation officer of AboitizPower, said up for construction are the Sita and Simod run of river hydropower plants in Kitaotao, Bukidnon with a combined capacity of 30 megawatts (MW); the Tamugan hydropower plant in Davao City with 11 MW capacity; the Tudaya 1 and 2 in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur with a combined capacity of 14 MW; and the Irisan hydropower plant in Benguet with a capacity of four MW.

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Lacson said the two hydropower plants in Bukidnon are expected to be completed by 2013 while the other plants are targeted to be finished in 2012.

“The hydropower plants would take 15 months to build. In Bukidnon, construction of the two power plants would start soon. We expect to break ground by the third quarter of this year,” Lacson said during a media power briefing on Monday at a restaurant in Cagayan de Oro.

Based on data he presented, for every one megawatt of a run of river hydropower plant, it can generate about 4,000 to 5,000 megawatt per hour of electricity for one year.

To recall, Greenergy Corp. and First Bukidnon Electric Cooperative (Fibeco) have been pushing hard to construct a dam for the Pulangi V hydropower plant in Bukidnon since two years ago but the project has not commenced due to strong resistance from the lumads in the community.

However, Lacson is quick to note that AboitizPower is not building a dam but a hydropower plant that would only source out water from a river and feed into a turbine to produce electricity.

“The same water that gets into the turbine is the same water that goes out of it. And we are not building a dam,” Lacson said as he expressed optimism that the project would be received positively by the people in the community.

Citing the other hydropower plants that they have already constructed, Lacson said local residents have been very supportive of their projects.

With the proposed hydropower plants in Bukidnon, he said for sure, the people would be very strong in welcoming their projects, citing that the local community really needs to be involved.

Aside from the six new hydropower plants, Lacson said AboitizPower will also construct two coal power plants in Subic (600MW) and Davao (300MW) and is in the process of completing the rehabilitation of the 105MW Ambuklao hydropower plant in Benguet.