Aboitiz-owned firms tap carbon credit market

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TWO companies controlled by the Aboitiz family have applied for carbon credits to bankroll plans to acquire power plants, its executives said.

Rodolfo T. Azanza Jr. of Statkraft Norfund Power Invest AS (SN Power) told reporters that the joint-venture company with the Aboitizez, SN Aboitiz Power (Snap), aims to secure 50,000 tons of Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) credits annually for the next seven years through the clean development mechanism of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

If approved, Snap is expected to get $750,000 in extra cash every year up to 2016 just by operating its two geothermal plants. The company operates the 360-megawatt (MW) Magat Hydroelectric Power Plant in Isabela province and the 175-MW Ambuklao-Binga hydroelectric complex in Benguet province.

Meanwhile, Hedcor Inc., which is fully owned by the Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. also applied for additional CER units for the clean energy that it claims its 15 small hydro-power plants in Davao and in Benguet produces.

Hedcor president Rene B. Ronquillo, however, did not cite the dollar equivalent of the CER units it applied with the ADB. Still, one of its plants in Davao del Sur was already approved for 81,129 CER credits.

CERs are credits that companies in countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol can apply for using three market mechanisms. One of these market tool is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
These credits may be sold or traded with other countries that have surpassed or could not meet the limits set for their carbon emissions. Countries worldwide have agreed to implement in a pact signed in Kyoto, Japan, to reduce carbon emissions and, ultimately, rein in destruction of the environment, the main source for raw materials feeding industries.

According to an Energy Studies Institute paper, a large-scale hydroelectric project could have a payback period of up to $7.05 million a year on 470,000 tons of CERs (at $15 per ton CER).
“We have to apply for these CERs to prove that the carbon credit market works as much as companies as the environment,” Azanza said.

He added it’s logical also for the company to protect the environment. “Hydropower plants don’t work well without a good watershed.” Ronquillo agreed saying that since the Philippines signed the Kyoto Protocol five years ago, the company has seen interest on clean energy grow.

In addition, Hedcor is putting up two hydropower plants this year, one of which is in Tamugan in Calinan, designed to tap water from the Tamugan River in Davao.