FOR Pax Silica, the Department of Energy (DOE) is preparing regulations aimed at meeting the power requirements of the 1,600-hectare Pax Silica project in Clark.
“Right now, we are drafting a circular in order for us to formulate some guidelines when installing generation capacities in data center hubs, specifically for Pax Silica,” Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said on Tuesday.“There are plenty of options, but we just want to make sure that anything that we do in powering a data center hub will not put the country in a disadvantage,” she added.Concerns have been raised that the Pax Silica project in Clark — estimated to require 3 gigawatts of electricity daily — would put too much pressure on the Luzon grid.Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara said the DOE was looking to align generation and data center project timelines, among others, to ensure that power requirements would be met.“One of the things we can immediately do for electricity contractors who are willing to locate at the data center hub is to identify what capacity they would need and to do embedded generation so they would not need to transmit it from a faraway place,” she said.“In addition to this, if we already have the timeline for the additional capacities per year that will be put up in the said hub, then we can also project the needed transmission, distribution and generation allocations for each of those years and put that in both the Philippine transmission and energy development plans and plan accordingly,” she added.“At the end of the day, we need to be able to secure the commitment of these locators in Pax Silica because any generator who will put up a plant will need 20 years to recover the cost of their investment. If we can make those locators promise to stay there for 20 years, we are sure we will be able to find the generators who will supply the electricity to Pax Silica.”
