Aboitiz unit sees no viable hydro resources in Visayas

Aboitiz unit sees no viable hydro resources in Visayas

By Ehda M. Dagooc|Updated March 20, 2009 - 12:00amCEBU, Philippines - SN Aboitiz Power Hydro Inc. (SNAP) plans to invest on hydropower or any other renewable energy sources venture in the Visayas.However, the scarce resources in Visayas hinder the possibility for the company to put up a facility to generate power through hydro or water.

SNAP president Luis Miguel Aboitiz said that there are no viable prospects for hydropower resources in the Visayas.

SNAP is a consortium composed of Aboitiz Equity Ventures and SN Power of Norway. The company vowed to look for more renewable energy source across the country as an alternative from expensive oil cost and traditional fuel.

The company however, spotted little resources in Panay, but Aboitiz said these will be too expensive to tap. At the present situation, it is not viable for the company to make a gamble and invest in the Panay hydroelectricity potential.

SN Power Country and Project Director Kim Johannessen Lande said the Norwegian firms thrust now is to bid on hydropower plants in the Philippines, as the companys core competence.

Freeman ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch:In Norway for instance, 90 percent of the countrys electricity is generated from hydropower plants, Lande said.

He later added possible investments in geothermal and wind resources are also in the pipeline. We may look into geothermal but our focus right now is on hydroelectricity, he stressed.

In November 2007, SNAP won the bid for the Ambuklao-Binga hydroelectric power complex. The facility consists of the 75-megawatt (MW) Ambuklao plant and the 100-MW Binga plant, both in Benguet. The hydro complex has further increased the groups attributable capacity by 18 percent to 578 MW.

The plant is presently being rehabilitated to further increase capacity by about 30 percent, said Aboitiz.

Aboitiz Power Corp.,(AP) the publicly listed power generation venture of the Aboitiz Group, also hopes to win in the bidding for the 192.5-MW Palinpinon geothermal plant of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) in Oriental Negros.

The Palinpinon geothermal plant has two power stations and is connected through a submarine cable to the Cebu-Negros-Panay-Bohol-Leyte-Samar grid. It supplies 18 to 20 percent of power requirements in the grid.

In a separate interview with AP president Erramon aboitiz he said that unless the Philippine government will strongly implement effective incentive strategies to power producers in setting up plants for renewable energy, it is still unrealistic to do so by this time.

"We have not [yet] enjoyed the premium benefits of renewable energy, versus traditional sources of power," said Erramon Aboitiz.

Although there is a strong pressure to adopt renewable energy, in the onset of global warming, according to Aboitiz "the real important thing about renewable is the company should know how much it would cost them."

Record shows, that in 2006 about 18 percent of global final energy consumption came from renewable, with 13 percent coming from traditional biomass, like wood-burning.

Hydroelectricity was the next largest renewable source, providing three percent (15 percent of global electricity generation), followed by solar hot water/heating, which contributed 1.3 percent.

In December 2008, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed into law the much anticipated Renewable Energy (RE) Bill. Dubbed as the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, it gives incentives to investors and energy producers to build renewable energy power plants instead of fossil fuel based ones.

With the Philippine power demand targeted to overrun the country's power supply by 2010, it would be ideal to meeting the demand with renewable energy.

Source: Philippine Star