Local power firm goes for green energy

By Albert B. Lacanlale
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO --- A local power distributor here has become the first private electricity provider to purchase clean and renewable energy from AboitizPower.
Yesterday, AboitizPower signed an agreement with local power firm San Fernando Electric Light and Power Company for the supply of renewable energy fro three years starting December 26, this year.
Cleanergy, the AboitizPower brand of alternative and eco-friendly power, will be sourced from AboitizPower’s Tiwi-Makban geothermal facilities and Hedcor-Irisan hydroelectric plant in Benguet.
Austin Herrick, president of AboitizPower wholly-owned subsidiary AP Renewables, Inc., AboitizPower senior vice president for trading & Marketing Luis Aboitiz, SFELAPCO president Michael L. Escaler signed the power supply contract in the presence of SFELAPCO SVP/general manager Jose T. Lazatin at a local restaurant in this city.
For the first nine months that end on Sept. 25, 2010, when SFELAPCO’s contract with the National Power Corporation expires, its power demand will be around 70 megawatts (MW), 25 MW of which will be supplied by AboitizPower. In the succeeding 27 months until Sept. 25, 2012, AboitizPower will be SFELAPCO’s exclusive bilateral energy supplier, during which the maximum contract demand is expected to reach 90 MW.
This is aside from the 10 percent supply sourced from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), according to Aboitiz.
A privately-owned distribution utility, SFELAPCO has a total energy requirement aver of 35 million kilowatt hours (kWh) per months for its 80,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the towns of Floridablanca, Bacolor, Guagua, Lubao, Sto. Tomas and in this city.
With the government’s zero-rate value added tax privilege for renewable power as outlined by the Renewable Energy Act of 2008, customers of SFELAPCO will initially receive a five-to-six percent deduction in the VAT imposed on their electricity consumption by January 2010 and the whole 12 percent come October 2010.
The government tax deducted, customers may enjoy up to 40 centavos reduction in every kilowatt hour they consume. SFELAPCO’s charges P7.47 for every kilowatt hour.
“We believe that as a distribution utility, it is our primary duty to serve our customers well and at the same time to treat our environment well. By going green, we achieve both goals simultaneously,” Escaler said.
SFELAPCO will derive 100 percent of its power requirement from AboitizPower after their contract with the National Power Corporation expired on September 25, 2010.