Aseagas Corp. has started operating its 8.8-megawatt biomass power plant in Sitio Hermosa, Barangay Malaruhatan in Lian, Batangas
Danel Aboitiz, president and chief operating officer of Aboitiz Power Corp.’s oil business unit, told reporters the company planned to start commercial operations of the plant in the next two months. The power plant uses organic wastes as fuel.
“Commissioning is very difficult to predict. … it’s our first time to commission that kind of power plant…, he said.
“With all the other power players who have moved to a different kind of technology, they had notoriously low availability factors during the first six months of commissioning,” he said.
Aboitiz said the company they had not made any expansion plans and was focusing on the commissioning of the plant.
He said the project would avail of the feed-in tariff rate given to a renewable energy source under the Renewable Energy Act of 2001.
Aseagas has marked a major safety milestone after recording one million hours of safe working without lost time incident.
“Aseagas has carried out work over the last two years in a challenging environment. To reach one million man hours is a considerable milestone in itself, but to accomplish this without a single reported incident is a significant achievement,” Aseagas president Sabin Aboitiz said.
The first Aseagas plant will use the organic effluent directly from Absolut Distillery’s plant in Lian, Batangas, where the wastewater is converted into power and other by-products. The plant could power 22,000 households.
Aboitiz Renewables Inc. , a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aboitiz Power, earlier acquired all the equity interest of Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. in Aseagas for P605 million.
“The acquisition of the shares in Aseagas is in line with Aboitiz Power’s target to increase its attributable net sellable capacity to 4,000 MW by 2020,” Aboitiz Power said.
The sale involves 72,710,000 common shares and 654,300,000 redeemable preferred shares priced at P0.832175 and P0.832175, respectively.
The board of Aboitiz Equity approved the sale of all of its equity interests in Aseagas to Aboitiz Renewables in April.
