Solution in sight to crippling brownouts in Oriental Mindoro
The crippling brownouts that grip southern Oriental Mindoro are to end soon, following the approval by the Department of Energy (DOE) of a certificate of energy project of national significance (CEPNS) on June 21 for Mindoro Harvest Energy Corp. (MHEC).
The CEPNS would expedite the construction and completion of the company’s 9.7-megawatt bunker C power project, which was intended to prevent power shortages in the province.
The certification would enable government agencies to expedite the license-permit process for the urgently needed project that would serve eight towns in southern Oriental Mindoro.
CEPNS is issued in accordance with President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order No. 30 of 2017 which was meant to speed up completion of vital infrastructure projects.
Cristina Young, president of MHEC, the project proponent, said she was grateful to Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi for releasing the CEPNS for the power project, which had been stuck at the DOE’s Power Bureau for four months.
Project hastened
Joy Najito, MHEC project liaison and licensing officer, said Cusi’s action unclogged the process of building the power plant after the DOE’s Power Bureau sought to limit the plant capacity to just 3 MW.
Limiting the capacity would render the project inutile as it would not solve the province’s power shortage, which the Duterte administration wanted to quickly address, Najito said.
The delay in the construction of MHEC’s power plant is forcing the Oriental Mindoro Electric Cooperative (Ormeco) to fill the gap of 1.5 million kilowatt hours a month expected from the MHEC plant by buying more expensive electricity from temporary power generators.
Construction in August
The MHEC applied for the CEPNS in January 2019 and had hoped to secure it by February to allow construction of the plant to start in April and meet its target start of operation by August or September, according to Najito.
With the CEPNS, Brian Ani, MHEC chief project engineer, said the firm hoped to secure all other permits by end of July and start construction in August with a completion date of January or February 2020.
The southern half of Oriental Mindoro, consisting of eight towns, has been suffering from persistent brownouts since a storm in December 2016 cut transmission lines that supplied power from Calapan City, where most of the province’s power plants were located.
Ormeco had long wanted to protect southern Mindoro from a debilitating shortage of electricity by building permanent power plants in its service area, which is currently getting its power from small power generators and engines.
The MHEC project, according to its proponents, would help ensure reliable, uninterrupted supply of power. MHEC said its plant was not expected to affect operations of generators in the area since these were supposed to be reserve sources of power.
