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MONTALBAN, Rizal: Tranzen Group Inc., a local firm headed by
businessman Salvador Zamora 2nd, is set to put up two more methane
gas-fed power plants in the country.
During the inauguration of the Montalban Methane
Power Corp.’s (MMPC) 15-megawatt methane plant in the Rodriguez
landfill in Rizal province Thursday, the company’s executive vice
president Danilo Cantiller said that Tranzen is also planning to put
up similar facilities in San Pedro in the province of Laguna and in
Navotas in Metro Manila.
MMPC is a 60/40 joint venture between Tranzen
and United Kingdom-based Carbon Capital Markets.
Similar to MMPC’s facility, Tranzen’s
proposed plants will harvest methane gas from existing dump sites in
the said areas and will have a capacity of four megawatts and 10
megawatts, respectively.
“These facilities collect methane and convert
it to power. This way, it helps mitigate the ill effects of methane
in environment,” Cantiller said.
Methane is the by-product of bacterial processes
found in sanitary landfills or in municipal sewage treatment plants.
It is a relatively potent greenhouse gas, which is blamed for the
deteriorating state of the environment.
Despite this, methane gas can be harvested for
producing electricity, such as with MMPC’s facility, thus
significantly reducing the pollution released into the atmosphere.
The MMPC official said that Tranzen is eyeing to
start construction of the proposed plants by the fourth quarter of
the year and would cost around $2 to $3 million per megawatt. The
facilities would only take about a year to complete.
Tranzen is planning to sell the facilities’
output to Manila Electric Co., which MMPC is tapping as off taker,
at about P4 to P5 per kilowatt-hour, or lower than oil-based
plants’ selling price.
Zamora is also looking at similar methane-based
power projects in the cities of Angeles, Olongapo, Davao, and the
town of San Mateo in Rizal.
Aside from the methane facilities, Tranzen is
also keen on putting up a number of environment-friendly generating
plants once the Renewable Energy Bill is passed, Cantiller said. The
said measure provides incentives to investments in renewable energy
sources, which have largely been shunned because of high costs.
“We may also go into wind and mini-hydro.
We’re in the process of getting permits and pre-feasibility
studies for these,” he said.
-- Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo
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