Philippines: Bronzeoak says biomass power plant faces delay

Philippines: Bronzeoak says biomass power plant faces delay

BRONZEOAK Philippines, Inc. has pushed back the target completion date of
the first of its three biomass power plant projects in Negros Occidental to
the second quarter of 2017, while expecting the second unit to be finished
towards the end of next year.

The move is likely to leave the third unit out of the guaranteed
feed-in-tariff (FiT) of P6.63 per kilowatt-hour, the full subscription of
which is set to end next year.

"We are finishing our first of its kind biomass plant, hopefully by second
quarter next year," said Don Mario Y. Dia, director and treasurer of
Bronzeoak Philippines.

Bronzeoak has solar plants in San Carlos, La Carlota and Manapla, which are
expected to be attached to its planned biomass plants.

"The cause of delay is we had to reconfigure the boiler [because originally
it was 18 megawatts (MW) then we expanded into 19.99 MW. When you do that,
you resize your boiler," said Mr. Dia.

"The other one is we re-tested the fuel source. Will we do pure sugarcane
trash? Or will we mix with others so we will have a back-up of fuel
sources."

The project is in partnership with the International Finance Corp. (IFC),
which invested $161 million in the three biomass power plants that are
expected to generate 70 MW of electricity possibly under the FiT system
being offered by the government.

He said the San Carlos plant's target capacity is 20 MW, while the La
Carlota and Manapla plants will each have 25 MW.

The arrangement would require Bronzeoak Philippines to first fund the
construction of the plants, with the IFC picking up the tab upon completion
and commercial operation, freeing up the company's equities to develop other
projects.

The biomass project will convert agricultural waste to generate reliable
baseload power. It is also expected to bring additional income to farmers,
reduce fertilizer costs, and help contribute to cleaner environment.

The three power plants were previously expected to qualify for the biomass
feed-in-tariff, for which the Energy Regulatory Commission has set a 20-year
guaranteed rate of P6.63 for each kilowatt-hour exported by a biomass power
plant to the grid.

Bronzeoak Philippines' San Carlos Solar Energy, Inc. is a greenfield,
stand-alone solar farm that supplies daytime peak power. It has a capacity
of 45 MW. The La Carlota and Manapla solar farms under the special purpose
vehicle Negros Island Solar Power, Inc. have a capacity of 32 MW and 48 MW,
respectively.

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Link to Original Article:
http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Corporate&title=bronzeoak-sa
ys-biomass-power-plant-faces-delay&id=136555

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com