The Board of Investments (BOI) has approved a P53-million waste heat recovery power generating plant in Cebu, qualifying the project for tax incentives.
The attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), in a news statement issued on Friday, announced the approval of Sinoma Energy Conservation (Cebu) Waste Heat Recovery Co.’s registration as new operator of a 4.5-megawatt (MW) power generating plant in Naga City, Cebu Province.
BOI noted that Sinoma was able to comply with the qualification requirements under “Energy” of the 2020 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) as the transitional Strategic Investment Priority Plan (SIPP) of the recently-enacted Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE).
The firm eyes to start commercial operations by the first quarter of next year despite the delay in construction amid the pandemic. It will employ about 17 workers.
The energy plant, under the power supply agreement, will “provide significant support to a specific cement company in Cebu by capturing and using the waste heat of the cement plant to generate steady and cost-effective supply of electricity at about 23,130,000 KWH [kilowatt per hour] per year,” BOI noted.
“The project will thus, result in an indirect impact of increasing the power supply available for use by other consumers. Without the project, the heat content of the gases generated by the cement plant will simply go to waste,” it added.
Earlier this month, BOI Managing Head Ceferino Rodolfo said that the investment promotion agency is only seeing a total investment approval of P600 billion this year, which is below its target of P905 billion.
Not including the energy project, the DTI attached agency has approved P376 billion worth of projects in renewable energy, telecommunications, transportation, agriculture and cement manufacturing, among others.
Rodolfo said they are hoping to catch up and approve about P225-billion investment applications in the last two months of the year to reach the P600-billion mark.
BOI raked in P1.01 trillion worth of investments last year, which is 10.9 percent lower than P1.14 trillion in 2019 amid the pandemic.