NGCP targets 2018 LMIP completion

Manila Bulletin
By Myrna M. Velasco
Published: July 29, 2013

With the archipelagic nature of the country’s electricity system, a single national power grid has been an elusive goal, but the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is anticipating it to finally happen with the targeted completion of the Leyte-Mindanao Interconnection Project (LMIP) in 2018.
NGCP president Henry T. Sy Jr. noted that the filing for the project’s capital outlay of $500 million will be included in the company’s filing with the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for its 4th regulatory reset under performance-based regulation (PBR).
He stressed though that the project’s blueprint has yet to be finalized “depending (on the outcome) of the ongoing hydrographic survey.”
Another important factor to be considered, he proffered, will be the completion of power projects in both grids so the sharing of capacities will turn viable.
Lawyer Joseph Ferdinand Dechavez, who is special adviser to the NGCP president, similarly apprised media that upon completion of the hydrographic study, the company will have to go back to the ERC for a filing on the project’s allocation.
The initial approval bestowed by the industry regulator, he qualified, was for the conduct of a feasibility study and hydrographic survey so the company can be properly guided on the actual site of the submarine installations that shall underpin the transmission link-up of the two power grids.
“Actual construction will hopefully start by 2016,” Dechavez said, emphasizing that on the construction terrain “we’re not simply just talking about the submarine cable, we’re talking about a very long transmission line.”
The stretch of the installations, he said, will be “about 400 kilometers of transmission line,” with the loop from Leyte and spanning across Cagayan de Oro to Surigao areas in Mindanao.
For now, the most important component of the project being worked on, according to Dechavez, is the hydrographic study. In science and geography terms, this will entail “analysis of the physical conditions, boundaries, flow and related characteristics of earth’s surface waters” or the mapping of bodies of water.
“If we are able to finish the hydrographic survey probably middle of next year; and at the same time next year, if we can get approval from the ERC, then we can start the project,” Dechavez said.
He further explained that the “hydrographic survey is important for us to be able to come up with the design of the project.”   source