Rare ‘green’ power plant opens
SAN JOSE CITY–The country’s first power plant that runs on commercial rice hulls or rice husks (“ipa”) was activated here on Friday.
The facility was put up by 21 rice millers here in a joint venture with the Union Energy Corp. owned by businessmen Lucio Co, and called the San Jose City ìiî Power Corp. (SJC iPower).
“Our plant is 100 percent [fueled] by rice husks,” said Edgardo Alfonso, chief executive officer of the SJC iPower.
“It is generating a gross capacity of 12 megawatts and is feeding 10.8 MW to the Luzon grid (of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines).”
The remaining 1.2 MW are kept in reserve.
The generating plant operates on a 7-hectare lot in Barangay Tulat here. It employs 100 personnel.
“We use 330 metric tons of rice husks every day to power the plant,” Alfonso said.
“The plant is clean as it is equipped with a facility that limits harmful emissions way below the limit set by the government,” he said.
He said rice millers buy and mill palay not only from parts of Nueva Ecija but also from Isabela, Pangasinan and the Ilocos provinces. This leaves enough supply of husks for the plant.
“That’s why we are putting up another plant with the same output of 12-MW electric power,” Alfonso said.
Husks are agricultural wastes, which the corporation now buys from member-rice millers at P1 a kilogram.
In a project brief, SJC iPower said the power project was inspired by the study, “Enhancing the Energy Self Sufficiency of Rice Mills in the Philippines,” commissioned by the European Community-Association of Southeast Asian Nations Energy Facility and undertaken by the Philippine Rice Research Institute and Full Advantage Phils. International Inc.
Co contributed P1 billion for the project. He was elected chair of the board while Leonardo Dayao serves as president.
The plant was completed in October 2014. It underwent four months of testing and fine-tuning.
Energy officials said the rice hull-powered plant here is the first biomass power project in the country to be launched after the feed in-tariff rates were approved on July 27, 2012. Anselmo Roque, Inquirer Central Luzon
