Mindanao will have excess power supply this year, the first time since 2009 when the island experienced outages on lack of generation capacity.
“There are good things coming in for Mindanao and power is one of them,” said Secretary Luwalhati Antonino, chairman of the Mindanao Development Authority, in a statement.
Antonino said compared with the situation last year and the years before, Mindanao’s power situation had seen significant improvement.
She said even with the ongoing maintenance shutdown of Steag’s 200-megawatt coal-fired power plant, the majority of Mindanao did not have rotating brownouts as reported by the Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives.
She added Mindanao was even expected to have excess supply this year for the first since 2009, with the operation of the 300 MW coal-fired plant of Therma South Inc. and the first 100-MW unit of the 200-MW coal station of Sarangani Energy Corp.
Antonino said the expected entry of more baseload capacities from coal-fired power plants totaling 2,000 MW until 2018 should be complemented by accelerated deployment of renewable energy projects, such as hydro, biomass, geothermal and solar.
The Mindanao Power Monitoring Committee in a meeting last week stressed the importance of advocating renewable energy as a prominent source of electricity for the island-region.
Antonino said the one-stop facilitation and monitoring of MPMC tracks 231 RE projects spread across Mindanao that could potentially generate at least 2,419 MW of sustainable power for the island between 2020 and 2025.
The government attributed the surge of RE power applications to the one-stop center web portal, an online database developed by MinDA and the Energy Department, with the assistance of the US Agency for International Development.
The web-based mechanism aims to accelerate the duration of the permitting process for RE projects to one to two years instead of the usual three to five.
The same online monitoring facility initiated in Mindanao was also adapted by DoE that led to the formulation of the Energy Virtual One-Stop Shop, which will also provide the same services for power proponents in Luzon and Visayas regions.
“A diversified mix of fossil and renewable energy sources is integral to our overall strategy of pursuing balanced and holistic economic growth in Mindanao,” said Romeo Montenegro, MinDA’s director for investment promotions and public affairs.