Vivant lines up 3 JV projects to ease brownouts in Palawan

Published April 29, 2019, 10:00 PM By Myrna M. Velasco

https://business.mb.com.ph/2019/04/29/vivant-lines-up-3-jv-projects-to-ease-brownouts-in-palawan/

Garcia-led Vivant Corporation is lining up at least three joint venture power projects that are primarily intended to ease the brownout woes of Palawan consumers.

The JV deals will be via the blueprinted projects of Delta P Inc. (DPI) and Calamian Islands Power Corp. (CIPC) – that could then essentially shore up power supply in Palawan. No further details though are provided this time.

As noted by DPI and CIPC President Walden H. Tantuico, their targeted ventures will be “the three catalysts that will help alleviate Palawan’s power supply problems for good.”

The proposed capacity shoring up plus the recently approved capital expenditures (capex) of Palawan Electric Cooperative (PALECO), are seen solving the lingering problems of power interruptions in that island grid.

Rounding up the array of solutions being put together for Palawan is the JV of Vivant and Gigawatt Power Inc. (GPI) – which had already been serving Palawan for roughly a decade. One of the biggest joint developments of Vivant and GPI had been via DPI.

“Not known to many Palaweños, throughout the past decade, DPI has been going above and beyond its contractual obligations to PALECO,” Tantuico asserted, while adding that such had in fact been “providing extra mile service to countless communities” in the island.

Since two years ago, Palawan had been continuously plagued with unwanted power interruptions – and delays in approvals of power projects intended to beef up capacity in the island-grid had aggravated the situation.

The power supply outages, in turn, had obstructed the flourishing of Palawan as a tourist destination – to the detriment not just of the province but the country in general because this also denied the State coffers of additional income that should have come from both local and foreign visitors.

“The momentum of Palawan developing into a mature world-class tourist destination has been hampered by the lack of reliable power supply,” DPI has noted in a statement.

As a matter of fact, the power interruptions in Palawan had earned the ire of President Rodrigo Duterte that he went to the extent of directing relevant government agencies to resort to takeover of the servicing power utility since the dilemma had not been solved on his target timeframe of December 2018.