NGCP to seek govt nod on $500-million interconnection project within the year

Business Mirror

16 Jan 2014 

 

Written by Lenie Lectura

THE National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said on Thursday it will be ready to file its application for the implementation of the ambitious $500-million Leyte-Mindanao Interconnection Project by the end of the year.

“We would like to target the filing of the application at the end of the year. If we may also do it earlier then why not,” said NGCP Head for Revenue and Regulatory Affairs Cynthia Manrique.

The NGCP, its spokesman, Cynthia Perez-Alabanza, said, is thoroughly evaluating all ongoing studies for the project, which involves connecting the Visayas grid to the Mindanao grid through 23 kilometers of submarine cables from NGCP’s Leyte and Surigao substations.

“It is a very expensive and extensive study so we are very careful of our plan before we submit it for approval. We are taking all precautions,” Alabanza said.

NGCP President Henry Sy Jr. said in July last year that the company is aiming to start the construction in 2016 so the project will be finished by 2018.

Manrique said before the application is filed, the NGCP needs to update the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) on various ongoing project studies.

Among others, Manrique said the NGCP will submit to the ERC a hydrographic survey. “We have a target to file an update, probably within the first quarter of the year, to submit additional information to the ERC.”

The NGCP is a privately owned corporation in charge of operating, maintaining and developing the country’s power-transmission network.

The company won a 25-year concession to run the country’s transmission assets after it took over the management of the country’s national transmission network in 2008 from the state-owned National Transmission Co.

It won in a public bidding, which was undertaken in accordance with privatization thrusts of Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001.   source