In Mountain Province, 4 hydro plants to go online in ’16

Four hydropower plants are set to supply electricity to the Mountain Province by March 2016, having obtained government incentives, the Board of Investments (BOI) reported on Thursday.

To date, the province does not have a single power generating facility of its own.

The power facilities have a combined power capacity of 10.55 megawatts (MW).

The 2.4-MW Dicapan hydropower project in Barangay Lubon, Tadian town, will be constructed at a cost of P369.8 million. It is expected to generate an aggregate of 8,697,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity a year.

The P400.7-million Upper Siffu hydropower project with 2.75 MW power capacity in Barangay Balangao, Natonin town is expected to produce 9,630,000 kWh of electricity annually.

The 3.0-MW Lower Siffu hydropower project worth P426.8 million, also in Barangay Balangao, is projected to produce 9,900,000 kWh of electricity yearly.

Also, the P449-million 2.4-MW Tanudan hydropower project in Barangay Lias, Barlig town will generate a total of 11,720,000 kWh of electricity a year.

Each project will employ 17 personnel. All four are scheduled to begin operations simultaneously in March 2016, BOI said.

The hydropower projects are projected to supply electricity to the Mountain Province which, to date, has no single power generating facility of its own.

The BOI said the Mountain Province has only one distribution utility, the Mountain Province Electric Cooperative (Mopreco).

It is responsible for the distribution of electricity to consumers in the province while the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) takes care of the transmission lines.

The renewable energy sector is one of the priority activities in the Investments Priorities Plan (IPP). The BOI spearheads the interagency effort to annually craft the IPP. The IPP is specially formulated to attract more investments and mobilize private capital in key areas of the economy.

The installation and expansion of renewable energy is a critical factor in sustaining the energy supply of the country. The government aims to triple its existing renewable energy capacity of 5,438 MW to 15,304 MW by 2030 as part of the National Renewable Energy Program.

Over the years, renewable energy has evolved into a major contributor of the country’s primary energy supply. It accounted 57.5 percent of the energy needs as of 2010, based on Department of Energy figures. Hydro energy dominates the RE sector as it already comprised over 60 percent of the RE output as of 2010.  Riza T. Olchondra