Mirant Philippines to complete barangay electrification program by year-end

Mirant Philippines, the country’s largest private power producer, said it expects to complete the electrification of at least 170 remote barangays by year-end. Mirant Philippines president and CEO J.P Leviste said this was in line with the company’s barangay electrification program. “We are simultaneously working on the electrification of several barangays in some of the remotest parts of the country. We are actively pursuing these projects to help Philippine government bring the benefits of electricity to our people and hasten the development of their communities," Leviste said. The Mirant official said the company’s electrification program is being done in coordination with the Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the government’s overall effort to achieve full barangay electrification by 2008. In 2005, a total of 147 barangays were energized by Mirant; 133 of these were in Mindanao, 11 in Luzon, and 3 in the Visayas. Of the 170 barangays to be energized in 2006, around 90 will be in Mindanao, 55 in Luzon, and 25 in the Visayas. The rural electrification program entails the construction of distribution lines to far-flung barangays that do not have access to electricity. The program is under Mirant Philippines’ flagship corporate social responsibility (CSR) program Barangay Electrification Assistance for Countryside Development (Project Beacon) that has energized over 1,000 barangays from 2001 to 2004 in 33 provinces at a cost of over Php 1 billion. Over 11,000 kilometers of distribution lines were put up-roughly the distance between Manila and Los Angeles-across the various parts of the country. It is the largest ever CSR program undertaken by the private sector. Mirant Philippines, a wholly owned subsidiary of Atlanta-based Mirant Corp., owns over 2,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the Philippines. It operates the 1,218-MW Sual Power Plant in Pangaisnan and the 735-MW Pagbilao Power Station in Quezon. It also has a stake in the 1,200 MW Ilijjan natural gas project in Batangas. Mirant is a competitive energy company that produces and sells electricity in the United States, the Caribbean, and the Philippines. Mirant owns or leases more than 17,300 megawatts of electric generating capacity globally. The company operates an asset management and energy marketing organization from its headquarters in Atlanta. - GMANews.TV