DAVAO CITY/ Nov. 16, 2025 – Consumer groups and businesses in the Davao Region have expressed support for the unsolicited proposal to rehabilitate, operate, and maintain the 1,000-megawatt Agus-Pulangi Hydroelectric Complex (APHC).
The Greenergy Renewables Group Inc. (GRGI) submitted the unsolicited proposal dubbed Energy Storage Project (ESP) to the Public-Private Partnership Center last September. GRGI proposes establishing a mass-based owned Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) entity to implement the long-sought rehabilitation of the ageing power complex that served as the backbone of the Mindanao power grid.
“We are going around Mindanao to consult power stakeholders and seek support for the mass-based ownership of the entity, which would rehabilitate, operate, and maintain the APHC,” said GRGI president Cerael D. Donggay. Under this scheme, Mindanaoan power consumers, cooperatives, businesses, and industries would own at least 30% of the P30-billion project.
The proposed mass-based ownership, according to Dr. Nelson Enano, head of the Mindanao Renewable Energy R & D Center at the Ateneo de Davao Univeristy, would correct monopolistic control over a critical resource like the Agus and Pulangi rivers, exclusion of local communities, profit extraction without investments, and weakened cultural and environmental stewardship.”
Rogelio Banlasan Jr. of Konsumo Digos said they welcome the proposed mass-based, owner-operated group that would work on the APHC’s rehabilitation and later operate and maintain the plant, as it would protect the interests of Mindanaoan power consumers. Banlasan spoke at the Just Energy Transition Dialogue, organized by the Mindanao Renewable Energy Acceleration and Coordination Hub (MINREACH), in a hotel here in the city.
“We expect that electric cooperatives serving the Mindanao consumers will be given priority in the dispatch of the APHC under a Mindanaoan-owned operator,” said Banlasan. The generation rate from the APHC, which is now owned and managed by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), offers the most affordable power rate in the country, at less than P3 per kilowatt-hour.
Enano further explained, the technologies proposed in the Energy Storage Project (ESP) are all matured and commericially available. He believes the proposed project is technically feasible. “We definitely need this kind of project, but there has to be safeguards to the environment and land use, among other things,” he said
Dr. Roland Suico, president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc., said the rehabilitation of the APHC would contribute to the stable power supply of the island. “Every time we talk with investors, the issue of power supply is always raised. The rehabilitation of the APHC would assure them of a stable and affordable power supply,” Suico said during the dialogue last Friday.
The unsolicited proposal, dubbed the Energy Storage Project (ESP), proposes operating the APHC in tandem with solar load centers distributed across Mindanao. Under the technology known as Hybrid Economic Dispatch (HED), these solar load centers would provide electricity during peak daytime hours, allowing Lake Lanao to store sufficient water to operate the power turbines of the six Agus hydro plants during peak nightime hours. These solar load centers would also allow the water reservoir of Pulangi IV hydroelectric power plant in Maramag, Bukidnon to be operated similarly.
The unsolicited project also proposes introducing a circular economy in the Agus plants, which comprise six cascading hydropower plants: Agus I in Marawi City, Agus 2 in Saguiaran, Lanao del Sur; Agus 4 in Balo-I, Lanao del Norte; and Agus 5, 6, and 7 in Iligan City.
The Circular Economy for Hydro Plant (CEHP) technology would pump the fresh water coming out of Agus 7 back to the small lake in Agus 4, Baloi, Lanao del Norte, and then back to Lake Lanao using solar-powered water pumps. CEHP will preserve the hydraulic power of the Agus River without critically drawing down water from Lake Lanao.
Mindanaoans have opposed the plan to sell the APHC over the last two decades, fearing that once it falls into the hands of power industry oligarchs, the generation rates of the APHC would increase and the plant would lose its “obligation to serve” the power needs of Mindanao.
“For the first time in two decades, a technically feasible and socially acceptable proposal for the rehabilitation, operation, and maintenance of the APHC has emerged,” said BenCyrus G. Ellorin, head of the MINREACH Advocacy Committee.
First presented at the Mindanao Power Summit on May 30, 2024, in Iligan City, the ESP proposal has since garnered support, with over 20,000 Mindanaoans signing a petition asking the government to give due course to the proposal.
The Just Energy Transition Dialogue, according to Migdonio Clamor Jr., project coordinator of MINREACH, was intended to provide a platform for deliberating issues related to Mindanao’s transition from dependence on fossil fuels to clean, affordable, and secure electricity.
Statements from the PSALM indicate that the government is prepared to grant a concession to a qualified private entity for the rehabilitation, operation, and management of the APHC, rather than an outright sale.
MINREACH is a consortium comprising the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF), the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), and Ateneo de Davao University (ADDU).
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