Business World Online
Posted on June 29, 2014 09:44:29 PM
DAVAO CITY -- GNPower Kauswagan Ltd. Co., which is building four coal-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 540 megawatts (MW) in Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, has committed a huge chunk of its projected electricity output to 20 Mindanao electric cooperatives.
In an e-mail sent to BusinessWorld, the company, a joint venture between the Ayala-owned AC Energy Holdings, Inc. and Power Partners Ltd. Co., said it is expecting to start construction of the facility in September this year.
It is targeted for completion in 2017.
The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has approved the purchase supply agreements between the local electric cooperatives although GNPower said it is scouting for more customers for the roughly 200 MW in its capacity.
“(We are looking at) the Interim Mindanao Electricity Market and private distributing utilities,” the company said in the statement.
In its April 28 order on the purchase supply agreements, ERC told the power generating company and the electric cooperatives that the generator should deal with each of the cooperatives and not through an aggregator, identified as the Association of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives Power Supply Aggregator Corp.
“Each (participating electric cooperative) shall be liable to GNPower,” ERC ruled.
The commission added that it will still resolve the participation of the aggregator, or the cooperatives association, in the said supply deal.
GNPower said it has secured all the documents necessary to build the power plants, including an environmental compliance certificate, and has signed up with the China-based Shanghai Electric Power Construction Co. for the construction of the project.
In an earlier statement, the company said the project “will be equipped with cutting-edge equipment, including four steam turbines and generators manufactured in Germany.
“We recognize that Mindanao is in dire need of power and we are keen to provide the needed capacity at very reasonable and affordable terms,” company president John Eric T. Francia said.
Mr. Francia added that the project “puts us on track to achieve our goal of developing over 1,000 MW of attributable capacity both in conventional and renewable technologies by 2016.”
The Ayala power company early this year acquired 17% of GNPower Mariveles Coal Plant Ltd. Co., operator of a 600-MW coal-fired power plant in Mariveles, Bataan that started operating in April.
Big power companies have only started their new projects in Mindanao in 2009, when the Alcantara-owned Conal Holdings Corp. announced it was building a 200-MW coal-fired power plant in Sarangani province.
In 2010, the Aboitiz Power Corp. announced its 300-MW coal-fired project, which will be under Therma South, Inc., is expected to be operational in the first quarter of next year even as the company secured the approval of its expansion to 645 MW from the city council.
The Alcantara project also announced that it will also start operating next year.
Another Aboitiz company, Hedcor, Inc., has been building small hydroelectric plants in Davao del Sur and Bukidnon. Its projects in Davao del Sur, which have been providing power to the franchise areas of sister company Davao Light and Power Co., and those of the Davao del Sur Electric Cooperative, have a combined capacity of about 65 MW.
In its report on the 2013 power supply-demand outlook, the Department of Energy noted that the Mindanao grid has been experiencing “under-generation” since 2010. It also said half of the region’s plants are hydroelectric and affected by weather conditions.” -- Carmelito Q. Francisco source
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