In Iloilo City: Bizmen nail new coal-fired power plant

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — The Iloilo Business Club (IBC) welcomed the plans of the Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) to construct a new 150-megaWatt coal-fired power plant, worth P6.2 billion, beside its existing plant at Brgy. Ingore in La Paz district in this city.

Despite getting objections from militant groups, IBC executive director Lea Lara said another power plant is needed to sustain the power demand of the city. She cited this year’s demand of having rose to 90 mW due to increased business activities and construction works.

“It is a welcome development for us (businessmen). At least the sustainability supply is now being map out by this investor,” said Lara, adding that opposition though could not be ignored sometimes.

Earlier, the Freedom from Debt Coalition-Iloilo Chapter (FDC-Iloilo) and KADAMAY (Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap)-Panay claimed that the additional coal-fired will just make Iloilo a dumping ground of its coal pollutants and other waste materials.

Lara however countered: “PEDC, a subsidiary of Global Business Power Corp., is with the business for a long time. It already knew the risk involved and it has its own expertise. We submit this concern to the proper authority to settle things in order.”

The proposed coal-fired power plant will have a big economic impact to the city because this will generate more jobs, said Lara.

The PEDC, for its part, is now finalizing its memorandum of agreement with a cement factory in Manila before the construction of another coal-fired will start next month. Part of PEDC plans is to convert the coal fly ash and backfill materials into useful one.

PEDC vice president for operation Petronilo Madrid said this cement company will get PEDC’s ash and backfill materials directly and convert these into cements or hollow blocks.

“Every day, we are producing 80 metric tons of ashes and waste materials that are being stocked on our ash pond. For this new development, these waste materials coming from our coal-fired plant could be converted already into useful materials,” Madrid said.

Madrid said the toxicity level particularly on mercury and lead is under the tight watch of its monitoring team which is composed of different sectors such as NGOs, the DENR, religious sector and other government agencies.

“I have been working at the coal-fired plant for more than 18 years already and even my family is living with me. But I did not see any bad effect on our health contrary to the claims of the militant groups,” he said.

Madrid said the new plant was not meant to pollute the community but to cater to the power supply requirement of Iloilo City and neighboring provinces in Panay Island by 2016. The proposed 150-mW will be the third generator of GBPC on top of the existing 164-mW power plants, he said.

“Western Visayas had a power shortage two years ago because of unstable power supply and we want to stabilize the power by creating another one,” he added. —-Montesa Griño Caoyonan (FREEMAN)