TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA) – Starting November this year, if another calamity strikes and cuts Bohol off from the rest of the Visayas power grid, there would be no power outages anymore.
This was the assurance given by PetroGreen Energy Corp. (PGEC) vice president Paul Morala after their company completed its 27-megawatt direct-current (MWdc) solar farm in San Vicente, Dagohoy town.
The province can now thus produce its own energy to power its domestic and industrial requirements on stand-alone capacity.
It is expected to light up 15,000 households in the province.
Morala said their solar farming facility can directly supply Bohol with their stored energy during natural disasters when electricity would get cut off.
PGEC recently installed 36,000 solar panels, the first batch to be installed in its solar array to be set up in the 22-hectare solar farm that would supply power to the Visayas grid from Bohol.
“This is a testament of PetroGreen’s dedication to the province to provide clean and renewable power and is a great addition to the power supply sourced locally here,” said Bohol Gov. Erico Aristotle Aumentado.
Upon his assumption as the province’s chief executive, Aumentado promised to find ways to lure power investors to locate in Bohol.
Aumentado has asked the local legislative body to fast-track the revisiting of the Bohol Investment Code so the province can offer incentives to investors who can put up an island-based power facility, preferably from renewable and clean energy sources.
Bohol used to be largely dependent upon the geothermal power which Leyte supplies, until calamities cut the lines from the Leyte source to Bohol, and the National Grid Corp. established its One Grid program to set up the Visayas energy pool.
In September 2022, the PetroEnergy Resources Corp. and its renewable energy division, PGEC, broke ground for what would be the first solar farm in Bohol after it secured an operating contract from the Department of Energy for 27.5 megawatts of direct-current solar facility in the rolling hills of San Vicente and Santa Cruz in Dagohoy town.
Bohol also keeps land-based generation facilities Hanopol hydroelectric, Sevilla Hydroelectric, Loboc Hydroelectric, and the Bohol Diesel Power Plant in Dampas District, but the old facilities have been underrated and could only produce a fraction of their rated capacities upon their commissioning.
Even if these facilities supply the Visayas Grid, they can be kept operating when Bohol is cut off from the Visayas energy pool.
“As a triumph of public and private partnership, the project would be called Dagohoy Green Energy Corporation and would be helping the community improve its economic conditions,” said Yrel Venture, PetroGreen assistant vice president for Environment and Corporate Social Responsibility.
Meanwhile, PGEC officials also signed their pledge of support to the teachers’ training program of the public school teachers of Dagohoy town who are teaching mathematics and since.
In partnership with the Dagohoy municipal government, PGEC also launched its College Scholarship Grant Program for deserving students in the town who are studying at the state college.
PGEC also pledged support for the Dagohoy Rattan Enhancement and Management Project with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Barangay San Vicente. (RAHC/PIA7 Bohol)
