The proposed $83-million (roughly P3.38-billion) 18-megawatt biomass power project facility in Negros Occidental is finally reaching construction phase next month, the project’s major equity holder has announced.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), Greenergy Holdings, Inc. indicated that “the project is set to formally begin construction on April 2, 2013.”
Greenergy’s subsidiary Biomass Holdings Inc. cornered 64-percent equity in San Carlos BioPower Inc., (SCB) which serves as the project’s corporate vehicle. The equity acquisition which was valued at P667.527 million has been closed Mach 6 this year.
It added that “the release of the total investment price to SCB completes the investment of BHI in SCB for the acquisition of the 64%equity interest in SCB”, which in turn, will advance the planned facility into implementation.
The company emphasized that the acquisition amount “shall be treated as a deposit for future subscription to common shares of SCB from the latter’s increase of authorized capital stock.”
Greenergy said the San Carlos biomass plant has already been confirmed by the Department of Energy (DOE) “to have satisfactorily met the requirements to avail of the feed-in-tariffs (FITs) when it begins commercial operations in early part of 2015.”
The company specified that its capacity will be part of the 250 megawatts installation cap for biomass power developments that will be incentivized with FIT.
Biomass technology though, based on the pronouncements of the energy department, was still lacking as to committed capacities. Hence, there is still room for others to get into the allowable FIT-supported installations.
Based on the department’s latest count, the committed capacity coming in before the prescribed cut-off period in 2015 is just around 70 megawatts. That has been the case despite heaps of interest earlier sounded off by prospective developers.
One of the uncertainties being complained about by developers though has been Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla’s policy pronouncement that the renewable energy projects’ FIT availments may only happen upon their declaration of “commercial operation.”
That was a diversion from the earlier “first come, first served’ policy which should just have been anchored on ‘declaration of commerciality’ at pre-construction phase of the proposed RE facilities.
However, since some of the developers have already bitten the bait on post-commissioning FIT availment, Petilla stood pat that such will already be the established policy.
“It will be the policy, and has always been the policy…first come, first served but after declaration of commercial operations,” the energy chief stressed. (MMV)