A Brown ventures into renewable power

CONCEPCION, Iloilo — A Brown Co. Inc. (ABCI) is entering the renewable energy sector with around 120 megawatts (MW) of hydropower projects under development, its top official said yesterday.

A Brown president and CEO Roel Castro said the company has several hydropower projects in the development stages.

“It’s at different development stages. But we’re looking at a total of about, right now on development, 120 MW. If I’m not mistaken, that’s around 10 projects,” he said.

Castro said the company is more focused on hydropower developments since these can be used as baseload power.

Baseload power plants are power generating facilities that can operate reliably and efficiently generating electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We are looking more at hydro. For one, solar is already full as far as FIT (feed-in tariff) is concerned. More importantly, given the profile of the grid, adding more intermittent pow- er…would not be helping both commercially and technically,” Castro said.

The hydropower projects will be undertake by A Brown with partner Rebisco Group, but the project company is still in the works.

“It really depends on the joint venture partner. But for now, it remains with the partnership that we have, the same partners with PCPC (Palm Concepcion Power Corp.) as well as for Peakpower Energy Inc. (PEI),” Castro said.

PCPC, a joint venture between Palm Thermal Consolidated Holdings Corp. (PTCHC) and Jin Navitas Resource Inc. (JNRI), is the project company for the 2x135-MW coal-fired power plant project in Concepcion, Iloilo.

So far, it has put up a 135-MW coal plant which started commercial operations on August 16, 2016.

Meanwhile, PEI has 55 MW of bunker-fired power plants, serving various electric utilities in General Santos, Agusan del Sur, and part of Bukidnon. It is eyeing to develop around 70 MW additional peaking capacity across the country next year.