Davao City government OKs Aboitiz Power's 300-MW power plant

MANILA, Philippines - Aboitiz Power Corp. (APC) has received clearance from the Davao City government to proceed with its 300-megawatt coal-fired power project.

In a statement, APC said the Davao City Council has endorsed the P25-billion circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFB) coal-fired power plant project of its wholly-owned subsidiary Therma South Inc. (TSI).

TSI will utilize clean coal technology (CCT), which seeks to reduce harmful emissions in many ways. Among them is by employing CFB.

CFB enables highly efficient production of electricity while capturing harmful particulates (sulfur and carbon dioxide) with sorbents and precipitators to prevent them from entering the atmosphere.  

Citing the city’s needs for power to propel its growth and the need to address the looming power crisis in Mindanao, 23 of the 24 councilors present approved the resolution endorsing the project. One councilor objected to the resolution and another was on leave.

City vice mayor and presiding officer Rodrigo Duterte said the vote was for the future of the city.

“We need power for the city. This vote was about control. We want this plant inside Davao so we will have control and jurisdiction over it,” he said.

The councilors earlier voted to adopt the joint committee report of the committees on energy, environment, health and trade recommending the endorsement of the project.

The council also approved the proposed ordinance reclassifying the area on which the proposed power plant will be built from protected medium-industrial to heavy industrial zone.

The four committees held three different committee hearings on the project since April that allowed the project proponent to present the project as well as the oppositors to present alternatives and to question the proposal.

“The power crisis that the city of Davao and the whole island of Mindanao is facing is real and the government and the private sector must join hands to cushion the people of Davao from the adverse and debilitating effects of such a crisis,” joint committee chairperson Pilar Braga said.

“Given the advances of modern technology and with the direct and constant supervision of government, a coal-fired power plant is relatively safe for the environment and human health and shall follow appropriate emission standards,” she added.

Seen as an enabler, the clean coal project can provide livelihood opportunities, and can help encourage the private sector to invest in greenfield initiatives in the region.

Davao City’s approval came more than two months after the neighboring municipality of Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur approved the project. Host barangays Binugao (Davao City) and Inawayan (Sta. Cruz) also issued separate resolutions interposing no objection to the project last April.