Transco backs Salcon's P15B expansion plan

The National Transmission Corporation has expressed its support to the proposed P15 billion expansion project of the Salcon Power Corporation. Salcon has proposed to build two more coal plants in Naga town, each plant boasting a capacity of 100 megawatts.

National Transmission Commission president Alan Ortiz, who was in Cebu early this week, said that while they are gearing towards promoting the use of renewable and indigenous energy, any possible energy source is acceptable at present due to the high power demand.

"Your (Visayas grid) demand, which is increasing by 7 percent a year is much higher than the rest of the country. In Cebu, because of your increasing demand, any possible project that would increase the supply should be done.," Ortiz said.

Ortiz said that as a matter of "necessity and survival," the energy department welcomes new energy sources. He cited as example the fast developing countries such as Japan, China, and the United States as using coal as energy sources for many years and found no negative effects.

Earlier, the Department of Energy reported that increased economic activities in the Visayas region have resulted to an increase in the demand here from 7 percent last year to 7.5 percent this year. The peak demand in the Cebu-Negros-Panay grid has also increased from 700 megawatts last year to 750 megawatts this year.

Cebu's supply capacity of 320MW is only about 3/4 of its demand of 442MW. The shortfall is supplied by Leyte geothermal plants transmitted via the existing 200MW Leyte-Cebu interconnection cables.

Meanwhile, Ortiz said that due to soaring oil prices, the energy department is now gearing towards intensifying its campaign to pass into law the renewable energy bill in the Congress. He said that use of renewable and indigenous energy sources can make government save a lot of money.

"Because of high cost of fuel, we are looking into renewable source of energy," he said.

He said that last week, the energy official had a meeting to discuss the energy situation and their moves to push for the proposed bill that is pending at the House of Representatives that would promote renewable energy.

The proposed bill, is a consolidation of House Bills No. 765,1068, 1347, 1583, 3016 and 3017 authored by Representatives Alipio V. Badelles, Harin C. Abayon, Rafael P. Nantes, Proceso J. Alcala, Augusto H. Baculio and Arnulfo P. Fuentebella. In the Senate, Senators Juan Flavier, Edgardo Angara, and Jinggoy Estrada have filled separate bills.

The measure seeks to promote the development of renewable energy sources specifically in the electricity industry by mandating all power generating companies to source a percentage of their power supply from renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources like geothermal and hydro accounted for 18 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively, in the power generation mix for 2004.

The bill also aims to increase the utilization of renewable energy by providing additional fiscal and non-fiscal incentives.