Event organizers said that President Arroyo will officially grace the inauguration of the 210-megawatt (mw) plant in Villanueva. She will be assisted by top regional and provincial officials led by Gov. Antonio Calingin.

Other guests will include Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Vicente Y. Emano, League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP)-Misamis Oriental chapter president and Tagoloan Mayor Yevgeny Vincente B. Emano, and Villanueva Mayor Juliette Uy.

The Mindanao power plant is inside a 55.42-hectare PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate (PIE-MO) in Villanueva town. The plant is implemented under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme based on a 25-year power purchase agreement with the National Power Corp. (Napocor).

The Mindanao coal-fired plant is considered one of Mindanao’s biggest single foreign direct investment in 10 years costing US$ 305 million. The plant has two 105-mw coal-fired thermal units, 6-km. 138-kilovolt (kv transmission line, and a 5-kilometer. underground raw water pipeline.

Funds for the project has been derived from Germany’s Steag Aktiengesellschaft (STEAG-AG), which invested 89 percent of the total cost, and the country’s State Investment Trust, Inc. (SITI) providing 11 percent equity.

"This multi-million dollar project will add to a favorable economic climate starting 2007," said Jerome Soldevilla, Steag communication officer.

He added: "The project will also bring an optimistic outlook for the economy in 2007 as it answers the call of the President to use alternative fuel and responds to the government’s campaign for investments in the power industry to attain stability in electric power supply to avert a potential power shortage in Mindanao.

"The plant is expected to contribute 15 percent of the total power demand of the island," Soldevila said.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) reported that all three diesel power plants (DPP) and the seven hydro power plants (HPP) in Northern Mindanao have a combined capacity of 1,031.20 megawatts representing 61.8 percent of Mindanao’s total installed capacity.

The region’s energy demand is 963.91mw in the previous years.

The boiler pressure test ceremony (BPTC) for the power plant done Jan. 18 last year showed that the boiler passed all local and international standards on boiler pressure.

During the test, the highest allowable force was applied to probe the mechanical strength of the water/steam tubes and pipes of the generator for acceptance and certification by the country’s Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), which designed, manufactured and erected the boiler in accordance with their standards, it was learned.

The ceremonial etching of the assigned 8-digit serial numbers to the data plates of the two boilers highlighting the BPTC was participated in by Dr. Axel Weishaupt, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Philippines, Dr. Washington Sycip, founder of the SGV Group and chairman of the board of directors of Steag-SPI, Claus-Peter Bell, executive vice president of Steag, Allen Roxas, president of SITI, and Takehiko Saeki, chief executive officer of Kawasaki Plant System.