BY DEXTER A SEE
LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — The privatization of five major power plants in Luzon is not a guaranteed measure to address impending power crisis in the country by 2010 due to huge investment that will be entailed in their rehabilitation.
Melchor Licuben, chief engineer, Benguet Electric Coop, said the country would suffer the same consequences of the power crisis in the 1990s without government measures to mitigate the crisis.
Licuben proposed instead construction of mini-hydro power plants that could boost electricity supply in various cooperatives.
He said rehabilitating the non-operational power plants will take at least five years, which is like building a new one.
Thus, the privatization of the Ambuclao, Binga, Masinloc and other power plants will not deliver on time he needed supply for the higher demand for electricity in 2010.
If the rehabilitation were to start soon, they are still expected to be fully operational only in 2012.
It was learned that there are still no takers for the privatization of Ambuclao and Binga dams which
are located in Benguet.
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