New Iloilo plant to supply Panay electric cooperatives

Manila Bulletin 
By Myrna M. Velasco 
Published: June 18, 2013 
The 135-megawatt Iloilo coal-fired power plant being developed by local joint venture Palm Concepcion Power Corporation (PCPC) is targeting off-take (power supply purchase) agreements with the electric cooperatives (ECs) in Panay Island to help them meet their electricity requirements around 2016.
This has gotten some boost after Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor made an appeal to the servicing electric cooperatives in the area, to “as early as now, Panay ECs should already reserve from PCPC,” stressing that “we want to make sure that the province will have sufficient power capacities by 2016.”
PCPC president Roel Z. Castro enthused that the company pushed its project to construction so it can cater to the sprouting businesses and growing economic activities in the island.
“We are pushing through with the project as planned and committed because we know and understand the power needs in Panay and the whole of Visayas especially by year 2016 when most of the newly constructed hotel chains, real estate complex and business hubs as well as other establishments are already operational,” he said.
Company chairman Walter W. Brown added that project sponsor PCPC will also be constructing “the corresponding transmission facilities needed so the generated power capacities of the Concepcion plant can be transmitted to the distribution utilities.”
Despite the abandonment of a major partner, project developers are out to prove they are unscathed when it issued last June 7 the “notice to proceed” for the project’s construction.
The turnkey contractor is the consortium of First Northeast Electric Power Engineering Corp. of China, Liaoning Electric Power Survey & Design Institute and Shenyang Electric Power Design Institute Co. Ltd.
The coal plant project’s supplier of steam turbine and generator will be European technology firm Alstom Power; while project management is placed under American-Canadian firm SNC Lavalin.
PCPC will be the corporate vehicle to implement the project. With the Ayala group leaving their fold, the company will just now be a joint venture between Palm Thermal Consolidated Holdings Corporation of the A. Brown Company, Inc. and Jin Navitas Resource Inc. of the Rebisco group.
“The target completion date of the project is by early 2016 which will be in time for the additional power supply requirements of the Visayas region,” the project firm has noted.
The plant which will be equipped with circulating fluidized bed combustion technology is targeted to be done with a second phase of another 135-MW capacity.
Back in 2004-2007, the Visayas grid was the first to suffer from supply shortages but new power investments poured into the area was able to reverse that condition.
Nevertheless by 2016, with exponential economic growth in various areas in the region, power supply in Visayas is seen reaching precarious levels once again, hence, investors are now advancing project plans to avert a portended crisis situation.    source