BACOLOD CITY --The Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO), which caters to the largest number of electric consumers in Negros Occidental, welcomed the implementation of the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP) mainly to empower end-users.
General manager Sulpicio Lagarde Jr. said on Monday that CENECO has already been sourcing 20 megawatts (MW) from geothermal energy sources, but more renewable energy (RE) sources are needed to support Negros Occidental’s objective of using clean energy.
“The program is very timely because we are about to end our 64 MW contract with Kepco-Salcon Power Corp. by 2021 and we need an additional requirement of about 20 MW,” he said.
CENECO’s coverage area includes the cities of Bacolod, Talisay, Silay, Bago, and the municipalities of Murcia and Salvador Benedicto.
The Department of Energy (DOE), through the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB), on Monday pushed for the implementation of the GEOP in a public consultation led by NREB chairman Jose Layug Jr. at L’Fisher Hotel here.
The program will provide captive electricity consumers the option to choose RE sources in meeting their energy requirements.
Layug said these end-users mainly include residential households with consumption requirements of not more than 1 MW.
“Through this consultation, we are getting the pulse of all involved stakeholders especially here in Negros Occidental which hosts most of the solar farms in the country,” he added.
“We want to make sure that consumers would be able to choose cleaner forms of energy through GEOP,” Layug also said.
The public consultation in Bacolod was attended by other DOE officials, officials of distribution utilities and electric cooperatives, and other power industry stakeholders in the Visayas. It was the first of the three consultations scheduled nationwide.
Based on the draft department circular prescribing guidelines governing the establishment of GEOP, the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) or its concessionaire National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and entities duly authorized to operate within economic zones are entitled to participate in the program on top of power distributors and generators, ECs, and other entities to be identified by the NREB. (PNA)
