Tuesday, December 3, 2013

EDC set to reinstall 147 MW to damaged Leyte facilities

Business Mirror
03 Dec 2013 Written by Lenie Lectura

AN official of the Energy Development Corp. (EDC) on Wednesday said the company  expects to bring back 147 megawatts (MW) of installed geothermal capacity by the end of this month to its power plants in Leyte that were severely affected by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan).
“If everything goes well, about 147 MW of the total capacity will be back on line by end of the year. That’s about it,” said EDC Executive Vice President Ernesto Pantangco.
EDC earlier reported that the cooling towers of its 232-MW Malitbog, 112.5-MW Tongonan and 180-MW Mahanagdong power plants are inoperable due to significant damage sustained.  Also, part of the cooling systems of 130-MW Upper Mahiao was also damaged. Likewise, the control systems of Tongonan, Mahanagdong and Upper Mahiao also sustained water damage. The company’s steamfield lines were also damaged but remains operable.
The total capacity of EDC’s geothermal power plants in Leyte is about 650 MW.
Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla said EDC’s facilities will be fully restored within one year. “They said some 120 MW will be back online by December 9. Thereafter, they will be able to restore in tranches until all is completed in a year.”
When sought for comment, Pantangco said the company is confident that EDC will successfully rehabilitate all its power plants soon. “We’re into 54 MW then today we had to install a piece of equipment so we are [again] down to 12 MW. As we get the units back to work we will try to target about 147 MW by year-end,” said Pantangco.
Last month EDC said the Upper Mahiao and Leyte optimization plants are on reliability runs and have successfully dispatched 57 MW into the grid.
EDC also disclosed that its unit Unified Leyte Geothermal Energy Inc. (ULGEI) will not accept the award of its winning bids in the recently-concluded Unified Leyte Geothermal Power Plant auction. ULGEI has written the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. that the physical and economic conditions underlying the bidding process and the Independent Power Producer Administrators’ administration agreements have been dramatically altered  by  the severe and widespread destruction caused by ‘Yolanda’ in central Philippines.   source

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