Villar-led Prime Asset Ventures Inc. (PAVI) will be supplying aggregate 21.27 megawatts of power to satiate the electricity needs of roughly 60,000 households in Camotes and Siquijor islands in the Visayas region.
The company said it will be setting up the necessary infrastructure facilities to meet the power supply needs of those particular island-grids via its subsidiary-companies S.I. Power Corporation (SIPCOR) and Camotes Island Power Generation Corporation (CAMPCOR).
The Villar firm conveyed that SIPCOR had inked a 20-year power supply agreement (PSA) with the electric cooperative in Siquijor for the provision of 12.86MW of power that shall be generated from bunker-fired power generation facilities.
Its other subsidiary CAMPCOR also sealed a separate 15-year PSA with the Camotes Electric Cooperative for the supply of 8.41MW capacity that shall be coming from a diesel plant to be installed in the area.
Beyond primary energy supply, the two PAVI-affiliated power generation firms will likewise provide ancillary services for the reliable operation of the power system – including those on load-following, reactive power support, and for voltage regulation.
As emphasized by Engineer Jose Rommel Orillaza, president for Power Group of PAVI, “we’re detecting an increase in demand due to the holiday season.”
Off-grid domains, like Camotes Island, had long been problematic when it comes to sustaining electricity service – and many of them are still ‘unserved’ or under-served’ until this time; entailing then that most times of the day, consumers in these areas could be suffering from blackouts.
This is a predicament then that greeted the entry of the Marcos administration – and the situation of these off-grid communities even worsened because of the surging fuel prices in the world market.
On the part of PAVI, Orillaza asserted that “we aligned our business goals with the government’s direction, in order to help prioritize rural electrification, as we believe this will also contribute to overall economic recovery.”
It primarily cited the pronouncement of the Department of Energy (DOE) that “rural electrification is a top government priority,” and this is seen as a way to improve the quality of life in these off-grid jurisdictions and far-flung communities.