Hedcor Bukidnon Inc. (HBI), a subsidiary of Aboitiz Power Corporation, is assessing the financial impact that the damage on its 68.8-megawatt Manolo Fortich hydropower plant in Bukidnon may incur given that full restoration is seen stretching up to eight (8) months.
The company disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) that the hydro plant suffered “pipe failure incidents” due to landslides that were caused by persistent rains in the area since June this year.
Aboitiz Power indicated that while its subsidiary-firm undertakes “full assessment of the extent and value of the damage to the facilities,” it already took the initiative of informing HBI’s insurance brokers, adjusters and lenders of the incident; “and the parties are currently undergoing the process of filing the insurance claims.”
The affected segment of the Manolo Fortich hydro facility yields net sellable capacity of 30.9MW, which is almost half of the generating capacity of the plant.
“Based on HBI’s assessment of the damage to the affected facilities, and assuming that rainfall materially abates by end-October 2020, it is currently estimated that full restoration will take approximately eight (8) months,” the company said.
Aboitiz Power narrated that the rain-induced soil saturation, erosion and mudslides, resulted in “pipe dislocation, pipe bursts and damage to the head high penstock line.”
It added that “the affected facilities have been temporarily decommissioned pending the necessary repairs.”
The Aboitiz firm qualified though that the hydropower plant “remains operational”; even if evaluation of the scale of the damage is being carried out.
The run-of-river hydropower facility just started commercial operations in 2017; and its capacity has been committed to various off-takers (capacity buyers) in the Mindanao grid.
The areas being served by the generated electricity of the power plant include those in Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Misamis Oriental and Siargao.
The Manolo Fortich hydropower plant is among the renewable energy (RE) installations of the Aboitiz group; and that accounts for 5.0-percent of its aggregate 1,540MW RE portfolio.