Negros Occidental, in partnership with Ventures Factors of the Philippinnes have signed a  power supply agreement with the First Farmers Holding Corp. The electricity will be sourced from a new bagasse biomass co-generation power plant in Talisay City. The biomass power plant will be capable of generating up to 21MW of renewable source electricity and is expected to be brought on line by October 2008.

Bagasse is sugarcane waste and it will come from the surrounding area with the biomass sourced power helping to cushion the effects of the power shortage now being felt in the Visayas grid.

Even with the power purchase agreement with First Farmers Holding Corp, it will still be necessary to purchase 40 MW from Kepco-Salcon Power Corp., a coal-fired power plant in Cebu, to meet the increasing power needs of the area.

Rosendo Lopez, FFHC vice president, said his firm’s bagasse biomass co-generation power plant could produce 21 MW.

“We will be producing cheap renewable energy from sugarcane waste so it will not affect food security since we will still be producing sugar,” Lopez said.

The biomas power plant will be constructed at a cost of P500-million and is expected to be commissioned in September with commercial operations beginning by October 2008.

Under the signed agreement, FFHC will sell 5 MW of power to Ceneco for two years from 2008 to 2010. The power supply from FFHC will be delivered to Ceneco through its existing 69 KV transmission line in Talisay City.

The FFHC selling price would be one percent less than the cost of power supplied by the National Power Corp (Napocor).

At current rates, the FFHC power cost would be about three centavos less per kilowatt-hour than that of Napocor, Montelibano said.

The plant could be entitled to carbon credits from the World Bank because the plant would produce renewable energy, FHC corporate secretary Rafael Lizares said.