RENEWABLE energy (RE) firm Taft Hydro Energy Corp. expects its 16-megawatt (MW) hydro facility in Brgy. San Rafael, Eastern Samar to go online by the end of the year, the company’s president said.
In a statement issued over the weekend, the company’s President Benjie Picardo said the project is more than 98% complete and will be ready for commercial operations by end-2021.
The facility intends to provide power during the holiday season and supply the requirements of Samar which is part of the country’s “Tuna Highway.”
Taft Hydro said the lack of power has hampered tuna fishermen from maximizing the use of cold storage facilities for their catch.
“With Taft Hydro, the project’s major economic multiplier will be the opening of investment opportunities in cold storage, processing plants, and even in tourism,” Mr. Picardo said.
The plant, which is scheduled to be completed after 18 months of construction, will harness power from the Taft-Tubig River which drains from the hinterlands of Southeastern Samar.
Taft Hydro has embarked on tree planting activities to support the facility’s watershed, and has pledged to plant a total of 500,000 trees over its project’s lifetime.
The firm is a project company under the Filipino-led Magis Energy Holdings Corp., which was established two years ago to ramp up growth in rural communities by developing renewable energy facilities in the area.
Magis Energy also owns Matuno River Development Corp., which earlier announced that its 8-MW hydroelectric power plant in Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya is set to go online before the end of this year.
The new run-of-river project intends to strengthen the power supply requirements of Luzon and provide irrigation to farmers in Nueva Vizcaya. — Angelica Y. Yang
