BAGUIO CITY – The city government is studying the proposal of a renewable energy company to put up a power plant capable of producing 15 megawatts of power from over 500 tons of unsegregated garbage produced by the city daily.
FTPontillo Builders and Engineering Services presented to city officials a system that can produce renewable energy from alternative sources like garbage that can produce potential energy from refuse and compost that are disposed in landfills.
The company’s proposed waste-to-energy for the city can help the nation towards the goal of self-sufficiency in energy and help reduce carbon emissions for the mitigation of the serious negative effects of climate change to mankind.
Under the company’s proposal, it will not be taking any tipping fees or any monetary charges for the existing waste management for as long as the municipal solid waste be dumped in the power plant and that it would also rehabilitate existing landfill provided that the waste-to-energy plant be located within or near the landfill or dumpsite.
The company proposed a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme for 20 years for the project and that it will be at no cost to the city government aside from the company providing all financial, logistical, and technical requirements as well as the documentations needed to construct, operate and maintain the power plant.
The company intends to employ some 150 qualified workers to be recommended by the city government with accommodations inside the power plant with free meals, above minimum wage, health insurances among other non-monetary compensation.
The company aims to significantly reduce the power bills of consumers in the different parts of the city considering that the waste-to-energy power plant can augment the power requirements of the city as it is pegged at producing some 15 megawatts of clean energy from the generated waste in the city.
Further, the company also plans to construct a day care center for workers with children with no one to take care so that the facility will serve as a child-minding and development center.
The company will be using pyrolysis as the means in converting the unsegregated garbage to renewable energy to produce clean energy for the city.
Initially, the company closed some 14 agreements with different city governments in Luzon and Visayas for the proposed waste-to-energy project, thus, it is banking on a Canadian-based company to extend the appropriate technical assistance for the realization of the power plants capable of producing clean energy for the communities where it intends to operate.
For the first five years of the project, Canadian experts will be in the city to supervise the operation of the power plant and after the lapse of the said period, trained city engineers will be the ones to handle the plant’s operation.
The company is just one of the numerous project proponents that offered to the city government similar ventures the past several years and these had been subjected to scrutiny by technical personnel of the different offices to ascertain the viability of the project even if the same will be at no cost to the city.
By Dexter A. See
