Jay Joel L. Soriano, Energy Development Corporation's business unit head for Negros Island
Geothermal energy, as opposed to wind or solar for that matter, is — in our view — the holy grail of RE technologies. It does not depend on the seasons. It does not depend on the time of day. It also does not depend on weather conditions. In other words, properly managed, geothermal can supply clean, uninterrupted power day or night, rain or shine, all year round. And we are blessed to have this energy source in our very own country, a privilege common only to a limited number of countries.
Our Bacman Geothermal Business Unit in Bicol is a part of the Retail Competition and Open Access or ROCA program with the approval of its Retail Electricity Supplier (RES) license. Through Bacman’s RES, we are now able to directly contract with contestable customers with demand below 1MW.
Apart from our preventive maintenance programs to ensure that our power plants are always in good condition, we have invested time and effort to make our facilities typhoon resistant so that they can withstand strong Yolanda-type typhoons, which have become the “new normal” due to climate change. While the upfront investments may seem huge, we believe that the increased reliability and avoidance of future damage will result in lower operational costs in the long run.
