The Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives will host
the maiden edition of an annual congress which seeks to mainstream challenges and issues to Mindanao’s Energy Future.

The one-day congress will focus on renewable energy, rural electrification and development at the Grand Caprice Restaurant and Convention Center, Limketkai Center, Cagayan de Oro City on January 26, 2012.

Clint Django Pacana, executive director of the Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives (AMRECO), said some 300 participants from the group’s 33 member cooperatives have committed to join the “Congress of the Advocates for Renewable Energy, Rural Electrification and Development.”

AMRECO’s 33 member cooperatives accounts for 1,941, 554 residential consumers in Mindanao. Twenty seven of the member coops are hooked up with the island’s transmission grid while another six operate in the off-grid islands surrounding the main Mindanao island.

“We are advocating rural electrification as the way to address Mindanao’s chronic power shortage,” said Mr. Pacana in an interview with media. “Towards this end, we have grouped presentations according to good governance, knowledge products, finance & investments, and the role of civic organizations in society for the duration of the congress.”

Presentations on Good Governance kick off the working sessions with “Sitio Energization” by National Electrification Administration (NEA) Administrator Edita S. Bueno, Transparency of Distribution by Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) by Chairperson Zenaida G. Ducut and “Updates on the Privatization of the Agus and Pulangui Hydro Electric Plants” by Deputy House Speaker and JCPC Member Rep. Lorenzo R. Tanada III.

Public discussions on Knowledge Products follow with “Research and Study Grants for the Mindanao Power Sector” by USAID-CENERGY, “Research on Mindanao Power Sector” by Prof. Rowaldo del Mundo of the UP-National Engineering Center, “The Mindanao Power Institute” by Dr. Ricardo E. Rotoras, president of the Mindanao University of Science and Technology and PASSUC.

Public discussions on Finance and Investment are next with “Aggregation – A Business Model for Mindanao Electric Cooperatives (Mr. Edgardo R. Masongsong) and “Development of Renewable Energy Power Plants by Electric Cooperatives” (Engr.David A. Tauli).