BACOLOD City – How will blocking coal-fired power plant projects affect Negros Occidental? The Sangguniang Panlalawigan wants to know.
Provincial Board members plan to hold a consultation with stakeholders about the power situation in Negros Occidental as they deliberate on the request of Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. to declare the province “coal-free.”
“Let us hear all sides [first],” said Board member Manuel Frederick Ko, chairman of the committee on energy. “We should hit the road running.”
Marañon wanted the SP to pass an ordinance declaring Negros Occidental a “coal-free and clean energy- and environment-friendly province.”
The ordinance will disallow the exploration, establishment and operation of any coal-fired power plant on provincial soil.
According to Ko, they wanted to determine the possible social and economic impacts of such measure.
“Before coming up with a decision on the proposed ordinance, we should get ideas from all sides,” he said.
Members of his committee and the committee on environment and natural resources agreed on the consultation when they met on Wednesday, said Ko.
The Board member said they will send invitations to the Department of Energy and representatives from electric cooperatives and transmission companies.
He suggested that the SP energy committee tackle the power generation concerns and the environment committee, the environmental impact.
On Aug. 1 the Energy department issued SMC Global Power a clearance for a grid impact study, which a power company needs before it can proceed with a project.
SMC Global Power intends to put up a 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant in San Carlos City.
With the project’s circulating fluidized bed, or CFB, technology for coal-combustion, it is estimated that up to 95 percent of pollutants can be absorbed before they are released to the atmosphere, thereby achieving lower emission rate, the company claimed.
The dioceses of Bacolod, Dumaguete, Kabankalan, and San Carlos were against the proposed coal-fired power plant./PN
