RAIN or shine, I eat my fried egg(s) sunny-side up for breakfast to start the day. Breakfast eggs have been part of my life like the sun since I was born.
Now I will have a sunnier disposition apart from my daily ration of fried eggs and the sun.
Bacolod City will earn its moniker as the City of Smiles with its sunny power source. It’s poised to have its own source of energy from no less than 100-megawatt solar power plant in Purok Paho, Barangay Felisa.
Compare that 100-megawatt with Energreen Power Development and Management Inc. obligation to supply Central Negros Electric Cooperative, with a mere19 megawatts of power during peak hours from 2015 to 2029. Energreen would generate power from its biomass and diesel power plants in Barangay Calumangan, Bago City.
The local partner of the German firm said the solar plant will be established on a 120-hecatre properties owned by the Sayson, Montilla and Lim families.
I agree with Felisa barangay captain Mona Día Jardin that the company will not encounter any difficulty. The selling point is a renewable energy project and will provide jobs for 2,000 Negrenses. The German company expects the solar power plant to be operational by year’s end.
That 100 MW is half of Governor Alfredo Marañon’s estimates of 200 MW of power that Negros Occidental currently needs.
The Bacolod solar power plant is less controversial than that of Buskowitz Development Inc., a German firm which is proposing to build a solar farm the congressional first district that aims to generate 700 megawatts of power.
German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour – equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity – through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, said the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry.
The German government decided to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, closing eight plants immediately and shutting down the remaining nine by 2022.
Government-mandated support for renewables has helped Germany became a world leader in renewable energy and the country gets about 20 percent of its overall annual electricity from those sources.
Germany has nearly as much installed solar power generation capacity as the rest of the world combined and gets about four percent of its overall annual electricity needs from the sun alone. It aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.
Solar energy is an option for reducing future greenhouse gas emissions. Negros Occidental could be in the thick of greenhouse gas reduction. Offsetting half of all future growth in thermal electricity generation by photovoltaics would reduce annual global carbon dioxide emission from projected increased levels by 10 percent in 20 years and 32 percent in 50 years.
What an outstanding legacy to bequeath to our children and their children and apos sa tuhod!
The interesting thing though is why the German investor refuses to remain incognito. No one in his or her right mind would even think of opposing such a project.
If the project does push through, Negrenses can collectively welcome the Germans with “Willkommen Sie zu Negros Occidental gekommen bist.”
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