BUSINESS MIRROR
SUNDAY, 20 MARCH 2011 18:57 PAUL ANTHONY A. ISLA / REPORTER
THE National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), the country’s sole power-transmission concessionaire, said it is ready to advance the cost for the P24-billion Leyte-Mindanao Interconnection Project (LMIP).
Henry Sy Jr., NGCP president, said his company will advance the funds needed to jump-start the LMIP that is set to start as soon as the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) gives its approval to the project.
The LMIP is deemed important by NGCP, since it will further stabilize the supply and enhance the quality of electricity across the country by connecting the Visayas and Mindanao grids via 23 kilometers of submarine cables linking the Leyte and Surigao substations.
“We will advance the needed amount on a staggered basis as soon as ERC approves our petition,” Sy said.
As soon as NGCP obtains ERC approval, according to Sy, NGCP will carry out the first phase of the LMIP, which is the implementation of a feasibility and technical study that will take six months to one year to complete.
ERC Chairman Zenaida Cruz Ducut said the ERC will hold public hearings on the NGCP petition to implement the first phase of the LMIP and will come up with a decision “as soon as possible.”
Sy said the NGCP has been working in tandem with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the rest of the DOE family, along with all other industry stakeholders, including distribution firms and electric cooperatives, in implementing all approved projects spelled out in the government’s National Transmission Development Plan.
NGCP took over the management of the country’s national transmission network two years ago from the National Transmission Co. after winning a 50-year concession to run such transmission assets through a public bidding, which was undertaken in step with the privatization thrusts of Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001.
Deputy chief Giovanni Randolf Galang of the NGCP transmission planning department said the first phase of the project—the conduct of a feasibility study—will cost about P92 million and is necessary because the latest feasibility study on this long-standing LMIP was conducted in 2001 yet.
Galang said that an updated feasibility study is needed after 10 years to consider new developments and contingencies like the optimal voltage-level requirements and the latest technologies in submarine cable systems. In 2001 the LMIP was estimated to cost $354.22 million. But in current terms, the LMIP is projected to cost $528 million, or about P24 billion, he added.
In a related development, lawyer Cynthia Perez Alabanza, NGCP spokesman, said NGCP is prepared for all kinds of blackout contingencies, including those that could be induced by natural calamities like earthquakes, typhoons and floods.
The transmission facilities being run by the NGCP were all designed with such natural disasters in consideration, according to Alabanza, as its projects meet all performance requirements of the Philippine Grid Code and other international building standards for transmission facilities.
Alabanza said they conduct drills and preparedness exercises every year beginning March to ensure all resources are in place in case of any disaster-triggered blackout or major power outage.
“Regarding design of facilities, all NGCP construction projects and facilities are compliant with, and often exceed, the performance standards as specified under the Philippine Grid Code, as well as international design minimum requirements established for transmission facilities,” Alabanza said.
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