ALSONS Consolidated Resources, Inc. (ACR) is in talks with electric cooperatives in Mindanao in its bid to forge a power supply agreement early next year for the output of its 15.1 megawatt (MW) run-of-river hydroelectric power plant in Sarangani province.
“We want to get it done in Q1 (first quarter) of 2019. We’re looking for a single off-taker for that capacity,” said Antonio Miguel B. Alcantara, ACR corporate planning officer, in an interview after the listing of the company’s commercial papers last week.
He said the discussions were mainly with cooperatives in Mindanao, which he said are preparing for regulations that require them to source power from renewable energy resources.
“There’s green [energy] option that’s coming, renewable portfolio standards, so coops are mandated to secure a percentage from renewable energy,” he said.
The Siguil hydropower plant is a P4.25 billion project at the Siguil River basin in Maasin, Sarangani that is expected to start commercial operations in 2021. It is planned to provide power to Sarangani, General Santos City and municipalities of South Cotabato.
Mr. Alcantara, who oversees the company’s renewable energy projects, said ACR would next work on the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreement for its next project — another run-of-river hydro facility — in Negros Occidental. He said the company targets to award the EPC contract by the end of 2019.
“We hope to proceed with NTP (notice to proceed) by end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. [There’s a] lot of work needed,” he said.
The projects are ACR’s initial venture in renewable energy for which it has lined up more run-of-river projects in Negros Occidental, Sarangani, Davao Oriental, Zamboanga del Norte, the two Agusan provinces, and Surigao del Sur. The projects have a potential hydro capacity of more than 145 MW.
On Friday, ACR listed an initial P100 million of the company’s P2.5 billion commercial papers with the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. to provide interim funding for the Siguil project.
Asked whether the company was joining the race to the unsubscribed portion of the feed-in tariff (FiT) for run-of-river hydro projects, Mr. Alcantara said: “FiT is an option for us but then the problem, we don’t want to put up a project based on FiT because you can only get the allocation if you [are], I believe, 80% completed. So the risk of someone else getting that allocation is there.”
He said the 80% completion for Siguil would take place only in 2020.
Under the previous administration, the Energy department set an installation target of 250 MW for run-of-river hydro projects, but the scheme ended with a few projects completing their facilities.
The large unsubscribed portion prompted the department to extend the scheme until end-2019. The FiT system aims to encourage the development of renewable energy in the country by paying first-mover developers a fixed amount for the power they produce for 20 years. — Victor V. Saulon

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