1 October 2009

Iloilo biomass power plant to
augment Panay’s energy needs

Two years from now, the 17.5-megawatt (MW) Biomass Power Plant in Brgy. Cabalabaguan, Mina, Iloilo will be fully operational. It will address the power shortage in Panay Island.

This project of Green Power Panay Philippines, Inc. and Global Green Power, Inc. has the backing of British Ambassador Stephen Lillie. “This (power plant) is not harmful. It is in fact health-friendly,” he stressed yesterday.

The head of Green Power Panay Philippines, Inc. and Global Green Power, Inc. is British petroleum engineer David de Montaigne.

This biomass power plant will be using multiple agricultural and food processing wastes very beneficial to Ilonggo farmers, he said.

There is a mad scramble to increase Panay’s dwindling power supply. Last year, a total of 1,020 blackouts were recorded in the island. Iloilo City, the center of commerce and industry in Region 6, has an ongoing coal-fired power plant project.

Ambassador Lillie also assured Ilonggos that the biomass power plant will not contribute to climate change.

The power plant will also give some 900 new jobs to Ilonggos, said Grace Yeneza, Green Power Panay Philippines, Inc. director.

“Farmers will be benefited. The plant will be using rice straws. We will be buying from them the rice straws,” she stressed.

Mayor Rey Grabato of Mina backs the power plant project in his town. The groundbreaking was in fact held last May 2, 2009.

The biomass power plant sits on a five-hectare land in Brgy. Cabalabaguan. Grabato said it will have big social and economic impacts to Iloilo in general, and to Mina in particular.

For one, it will have lower generation charges compared to other power-generating plants in Panay Island.

In a previous interview, de Montaigne said the biomass power plant would be “very efficient...only one kilogram of biomass is needed to produce one kilowatt of electricity.”

Brgy. Cabalabaguan was chosen for the power plant’s site because it is a biomass source and near areas where biomass can be sourced.

De Montaigne said the biomass power plant is their answer to the government’s call for renewable power in line with the Renewable Energy Act that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law last December 2008.

Green Power Panay Philippines Inc. has already signed Electric Supply Agreements with Iloilo Electric Cooperatives 1 and 2.