PUERTO PRINCESA CITY—The local government of Narra in southern Palawan and the Langogan Power Corp. (LPC) signed recently a memorandum of agreement for the development of a 7-megawatt (MW) hydropower facility at Batang-Batang River in Barangay Princess Urduja.
Narra Mayor Lucena Demaala of Narra and LPC executive Mike Wootton signed the agreement.
Demaala said the hydropower facility will have the capacity to produce about 32 gigawatts a year of clean energy, and would effectively reduce fossil-fuel emissions by 25,693 tons a year.
Jesse Ang, resident representative of the International Finance Corp. (IFC), who was present during the signing ceremony, said, “The IFC is keen in supporting hydro projects directly, as well as through the Bank of Philippine Island via guarantee facilities.”
“These hydro projects provide crucial energy resources to support the continued growth of tourism in Palawan,” Ang said.
The “IFC provides and mobilizes capital to encourage private investments in the Philippines, especially in underfinanced sectors such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, water and agriculture. It also works with the government to attract investors to much-needed infrastructure projects.”
LPC Spokesman Jenny Monteagudo said the “company welcomes the agreement with Narra as a motivation for the Palawan Electric Cooperative [Paleco] to enter into a power purchase agreement for clean energy,”
an objective that the renewable-energy company has been “pursuing for a number of years now, to provide electricity at less than half the cost of what the power cooperative is currently paying for electricity generation.”
She said hydropower is offered at the unsubsidized rate of P6.5896 per kilowatt hour against an average subsidized price of P14.0688 to 14.75, which costs electricity consumers over P300 monthly a year.
Meanwhile, Lydia Orial of the Local Government Unit Guarantee Corp. said that together with the IFC and the World Bank, they will support the LPC’s development of the project at Batang-Batang River, and welcomes it as a significant clean energy contribution to Palawan’s electricity system.
The Batang-Batang River hydropower project is partnered with the Langogan 6.8- MW hydropower project in this city. Both can provide 25 percent to 30 percent of the total demand of the Palawan main grid, and will reportedly obviate the need for the coal-fired power project being proposed by the DMCI Power Corp.
Anthony Shibley, chairman of independent power producer Delta P., a longstanding diesel power provider to Paleco, said he welcomes the renewable hydropower project to the cooperative system.
“We welcome the addition of renewable hydro to the Paleco system. It will help in system balancing and provide additional economic power, and not dependent on imported fuels. We are very pleased to see the support of the Narra local government to the long-awaited introduction of hydropower and the LPC to the Palawan power sector,” Shibley said.
Apparently, the hydropower project investment will result in bringing about savings of over P180 million per year for all power consumers in the country by reducing draws on the Universal Charge Subsidy. The savings will increase to nearly P400 million per year.
Bart Duff, president of the Palawan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said they had earlier “endorsed the LPC’s hydropower project, and has been eagerly awaiting movements on the initiative for several years.”
“We really appreciate the tireless efforts of the LPC in pursuing development of affordable and clean energy for Palawan,” environment advocate and lawyer Grizelda Mayo-Anda of the Palawan Alliance for Clean Energy (Pace) said on the other hand.
She added that the Pace views the agreement signing as a significant development in the pursuit of renewable energy for Palawan.
“We hope that this hydropower project will finally kill off the threat of dirty coal here in Palawan,” she added, saying they congratulate the LPC and the municipal government of Narra for the initiative.
The project has been timed to produce electricity for Palawan in 2016, and Langogan in 2017. The LPC and its Norwegian partners’ investment in the province will be over P2 billion, creating new jobs for the province.