Aboitiz Power Corp. said Friday it continues to improve the performance of its renewable energy facilities across the country as it pursues a greater share of RE in its capacity mix by 2030.
Aboitiz Power president and chief executive Emmanuel Rubio said the firm wanted to make sure its assets would serve the RE needs of the country.
“We continuously look for ways to improve the performance of our Cleanergy plants in order to achieve our availability and reliability targets. This will be an important part of our operations as we work on our goal of achieving a 50:50 balance between our Cleanergy and thermal portfolios in the next 10 years,” Rubio said in a statement.
Aboitiz Power envisions a 50:50 balance between renewable and thermal portfolios by 2030, further expanding its Cleanergy capacity along the way to help develop the country’s RE market and contribute to the global RE goals.
Aboitiz Power invested in plant reliability for its run-of-river hydropower unit Hedcor Inc. that logged total generation of 182 million kilowatt-hours in the first quarter, breaking its own forecast of 123 million kWh.
“Aside from the favorable weather conditions, Hedcor’s performance for the first quarter of 2021 is largely driven by our continued efforts to improve plant reliability,” Hedcor vice president for operations Rolando Pacquiao said.
Hedcor consistently hit its monthly generation targets while powering some 76,000 households, mainly attributed to the steady improvement in reliability performance, which includes ensuring high availability and maintaining low unplanned downtime hours.
Pacquiao said this involved continuous efforts to automate the hydro plants in Luzon and the integration of the Manolo Fortich hydro projects in Bukidnon to the Mindanao Control Center, which would allow Hedcor to control all its plants across Mindanao from a single control room.
Hedcor’s automation initiatives include putting in place systems aimed at improving operational efficiency, enhancing safety by minimizing the interaction between plant operators and the various machines and enabling real-time monitoring to help them stay on top of their operations.
Compared to Hedcor’s first-quarter performance in the past five years, the group’s daily generation percentage was at its highest and most consistent in 2021.
The hydropower firm logged an average daily generation percentage of 145.41 percent versus last year’s first-quarter figure of 80.99 percent.
Aboitiz Power said the strong performance of Hedcor translated into a larger equivalent benefit that Hedcor’s host communities would reap, including educational assistance, livelihood projects, health programs, and environmental initiatives.