Green Power Negros Philippines Inc. (GPNPI) has signified its intention of putting up a 35-megawatt multi-fuel biomass power Plant in the Northern Negros Agro-Industrial Economic Zone in Sagay City.
In his letter to Negros Occidental Vice Governor Genaro Alvarez, GPNPI president David de Montaigne said the power plant project will use proven multi-fuel technology that delivers stable, base-load biomass power, utilizing food processing wastes and agricultural residues.
Biomass residues, which will fuel the power plant, include rice straw and husk, corn straw and cob, sugarcane tops and leaves, and coconut husk, among others.
The biomass feedstock for the power plant will not compete with food needs in any way, de Montaigne assured.
Instead, the collection and use of these biomass resources as feedstock resolve the problem of the current practice of burning the biomass residues or leaving them to rot in the fields, which gives off green house gasses that contribute to the ill-effects of climate change, he explained.
The project will be among the first grid-connected biomass power plants in the country. In its first year of operation, it is projected to deliver approximately P400 million to the host barangay, city or municipality and province in terms of royalties, as mandated in the Electric Power Industry Reform Act.
In a span of 25 years, de Montaigne said the royalties from electric power generated by the plant can amount to P18 billion.
Unlike wind, solar or hydro power sources, which depend on the vagaries of nature to generate electric power, biomass power plants can provide a stable and constant power supply just like a coal-fired power plant, because of the stable feedstock source.
Each 35-megawatt facility can also generate an estimated 3,400 direct jobs, said de Montaigne.
GPNPI is an operated subsidiary of GGPC PLC, the local holding company of British company Global Green Power PLC.
