GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 20 Nov) – Power supply in Mindanao will get an additional 20 megawatts (MW) soon.
This after Peakpower Soccsargen, Inc. (PSI) finally inaugurated today (Thursday) its brand new bunker diesel-fired power plant in this city, the “Tuna Capital of the Philippines.”
PSI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Peakpower Energy Inc., a joint venture of A Brown Company Inc.
(ABCI), Enterprise Holdings Corp, WorldPower Alliance Ltd, Power Mavens Holdings Ltd, which invested P1 billion to build the power plant to address electricity shortage in the area.
But even before the new power plant could go online, Dr. Walter A. Brown, ABCI chair, committed to expand the capacity of PSI reportedly by 15 MW, owing to the “business-friendly environment and the support shown by various stakeholders to the project.”
“Now we have complied with our commitment,” he said of the brand new power plant, which he noted was constructed in response to the need of the locality.
He was referring to the eight-hour daily brownouts the locality faced in the past few years.
Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla, the event’s main guest, lauded the company for building the power plant.
He cited the partnership between PSI and the South Cotabato Electric Cooperative 2 (Socoteco 2) as a “model in narrowing supply shortfall in a locality.”
PSI would supply the plant’s output to Socoteco 2, and after 15 years, the cooperative will own the facility since it was constructed through a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme.
The energy secretary said the BOT agreement between the company and the cooperative was the first in the country.
“I hope we’ll have more of this initiative since this is what we need for Mindanao,” Petilla said.
PSI president Roel Castro said they are still waiting for a clearance from the Energy Regulatory Commission for the plant to go online.
“We are expecting the clearance to get out very soon… [Once online], the people of General Santos will have, not really zero, but reduced brownouts this Christmas season,” Castro said.
He noted the plant’s completion was ahead of schedule since their deadline should have been in January 2015.
Castro thanked the local government unit, the business sector, the Socoteco 2 and other stakeholders for their support to the project.
Socoteco 2 President Elenito Senit also lauded the company for constructing and completing the power plant.
“This is a dream come true for Socoteco 2,” he said, noting that the eight-hour daily blackouts experienced by the consumers in the past few years, especially during the summer period, would no longer happen because of the new power plant.
Socoteco 2 serves this city and the entire Sarangani province and parts of South Cotabato.
“We hope you will transfer the power plant to us still in A-1 [fine] condition,” Senit said.
