Coal plant re-testing moved to Oct. 14
The re-testing of the 164-megawatt coal-fired power plant of the Panay Energy Development Corp. in Brgy. Ingore, La Paz, Iloilo City set yesterday has been moved to October 14 and 15.
Lemuel Fernandez, public relations consultant of Global Business Power Corp., parent firm of PEDC, said they were informed that the two third-party experts who will observe the re-testing will be available only later this week.
“So we re-scheduled the re-test on October 14 and 15,” he said.
Fernandez said they have no idea about the identities of the two observers as it was the Department of Environment and Natural Resources that chose the experts.
The Multipartite Monitoring Team had earlier sought the presence third-party experts.
The PEDC agreed to conduct a repeat of the test-firing after its investigation found no cause of foul smell allegedly emitted by the plant after its test-firing and steam blowing last month.
Henry Alcalde, PEDC president for Panay operations, had earlier said they will conduct a re-testing to put the issue to rest,
“We would do the re-test at exactly at the same plant, using the same diesel fuel that we have used, and using the same process,” he said.
The PEDC management has refused to acknowledged that the foul odor that caused a number of residents of Brgy. Ingore and nearby villages to get ill came from the plant.
Fernandez said that if during the simulation test, a foul odor will again be smelled, they would immediately shut down the plant and do necessary mitigating measures.
If during the re-testing no foul odor will come out, the company will continue with the plant construction, he said.*
