ASIA PACIFIC Renewable Energy Solutions, Inc., a Makati-based company specializing in waste-to-energy projects using technology from Singapore, is looking at six areas in the Philippines to build facilities that will process garbage into electricity.
“We do have plans and we are finalizing concession agreements with a few regions. We have at least six regions, it’s covering north, south and western Mindanao — the entire country,” Rafael-Javier Eubra, the company’s president and chief executive officer, told reporters on Tuesday after a Senate hearing where he was one of the resource speakers.
“Our target capacity with those regions that we are talking to are about approximately 1,800 tons a day, which will generate 34 megawatts (MW) of electricity,” he added.
Thus far, he said his group had forged an agreement with the island province of Catanduanes in the Bicol region.
“Catanduanes is aiming for a 1,800 tons, which would generate 34 MW. Other regions are less because every region has different capacity and requirements. If ever that (Catanduanes is a) pioneer,” Mr. Eubra said.
“We’re not only talking about the Catanduanes waste. It’s the Bicol region waste,” he added.
He placed the capital investment in the project at a ballpark figure of $200 million. He said a barge can bring garbage from other provinces in the region to the island in a two-hour trip from the port of Tabaco in Albay.
“We are investing directly to the region,” he said.
He declined to identify the other areas in the country in which the company is trying to negotiate an agreement to build a waste-to-energy facility.
“There are many factors why we engaged with the province of Catanduanes, as there are also reasons why we engaged with the other regions, but there will be no same reasons for each,” Mr. Eubra said.
Asked if the company would wait for the passage of a law that seeks to establish a national energy policy and framework for facilities using waste-to-energy technologies, he said: “I think there is already an initiative.”
He said local government units are given the mandate to decide for themselves what is good for their cities or their regions.
“If you have the finances, you have the land, you have all the technology, you go ahead,” he said. “We have foreign partners in Singapore because this is a Singaporean technology. We’ve been here already for two years.”
Mr. Eubra said his company would earn from the project through energy sales and the tipping fee, or the payment collected from local government units that dispose their garbage to the waste-to-energy facility. — Victor V. Saulon
