Start-up renewable energy (RE) firm Matuno River Development Corporation (MRDC) is advancing on to the commercial operation of its 8-megawatt hydroelectric power generating facility before the end of this year.
The company announced that the run-of-river power project, which is sited in Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, will be feeding its generated electricity into the main power grid of Luzon.
Armando L. Diaz, president of MRDC, said “the project is a realization of the company’s plan to push forward the Department of Energy’s agenda towards making renewable energy a significant part of the country’s energy mix.”
According to the project-sponsor firm, the hydropower facility is being lined up to avail of the feed-in-tariff (FIT) incentives, which the energy department had extended for hydro technology until the 250-MW installation for this RE development would be fully subscribed.
As cast on blueprint, the hydropower facility was developed along the Matuno River, which is a tributary of the Magat Dam that has massive watershed area of 590 square kilometers.
The technology supplier for the project is Global Hydro Energy GmbH of Austria, a European company that has special expertise on installation of hydropower electric facilities in various parts of the world.
The plant, MRDC specified, “will be connected to the Bayombong substation of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines,” the operator of the power transmission system of the country.
The developer-firm noted that the 8.0MW output of the plant “will augment the power supply needs of Luzon, especially with the unpredictable outages of the older and less efficient coal power plants.”
Diaz qualified their company “is very much optimistic and bullish in our push for green energy,” with him adding that their project’s journey to completion “defies the limitations of the current pandemic and its restrictions.”
Apart from the DoE, the other government agencies that had been instrumental and had supported the project’s advancement to implementation phase had been the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), National Irrigation Administration (NIA), Board of Investments as well as the relevant local government units, being the host-communities of the hydropower facility.
MRDC is the corporate vehicle for the run-of-river hydropower venture in Nueva Vizcaya, and it is a subsidiary of Magis Energy Holdings Corporation, a Filipino-owned company that has been pursuing RE projects, including the 16-MW Taft Hydro Energy Corporation installation in Eastern Samar.