CALAPAN CITY, Oriental Mindoro -- Former Oriental Mindoro Congressman Rodolfo G. Valencia has proposed the use of coal as the most practical and economically-viable solution to end the power crisis in Mindoro island.
Valencia has particularly endorsed the setting-up of a submarine power cable that will connect Semirara and Oriental Mindoro or the construction of a coal-fired power plant that will be supplied with coal coming from the said coal-rich island located 30-kilometers south of Mindoro.
Valencia, chairman of the RGV Group of Companies he founded five decades ago, said that coal plants nowadays, like those operated by privately-owned D.H. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI) are using government-approved filtering technology.
This, he said, reportedly does not have adverse effects on the environment, citing similar coal plants in Batangas, Quezon, Iloilo and most notably in Sual, Pangasinan.
According to Valencia, the increasing demands for electricity and the depletion of government funds that support off-grid areas like Mindoro will most likely make the local power situation more fragile as shown by successive power interruptions in the past few days.
The loan power distributor, Oriental Mindoro Electric Cooperative Inc. (ORMECO) has repeatedly admitted that shortage of fuel has also triggered power disruptions in all its covered areas.
“Due to the issues involving the fund depletion, the government is moving for its elimination. Ultimately, off-grid consumers will have to pay for the actual rate including the fuel rate,” Valencia emphasized in his presentation during a dialog with some local government officials and a group of Mindoro-based media on Saturday, July 9, at Filipinia Hotel in Calapan City.
The two provinces of Mindoro (Oriental and Occidental) are receiving electric subsidy from the government’s National Power Corporation out of funds from the Universal Charge for Missionary Electrification (UCME) which are being collected from all electric consumers in the country.
The subsidized price or better known as Subsidized Approved Generation Rate (SAGR) has been previously pegged by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), a government regulatory body, at P5.64/kwh, which is way below the approximately P25/kwh True Cost Generation Rate (TCGR).
In April this year, the ERC allowed NPC to collect the new P6.3693/kwh SAGR which it had earlier approved and by 2023, it will become P6.952/kwh and P7.39/kwh by 2024.
These increases eventually led to a substantial increase in the electricity bills of member-consumers of ORMECO.
In 2017, then Vice-Governor (now Governor) Humerlito A. Dolor authored a resolution expressing the support of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan for the Mindoro-Semirara power grid connection.