(The Philippine Star) | Updated September 10, 2016 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines -
First Gen Corp. will start commercial operations its 97-megawatt (MW) Avion
natural-gas fired power plant in Batangas City after securing a regulatory
clearance.
In a disclosure to the
Philippine Stock Exchange, First Gen said its wholly-owned unit Prime Meridian
Powergen Corp. (PMPC) received yesterday the certificate of compliance (COC)
issued by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for the Avion power plant.
“The certificate on the
change of status of the Avion plant to commercial operations is under process
with the Philippine Electricity Market Corp., operator of the Wholesale
Electricity Spot Market (WESM),” the company said.
A COC is required
before any generating company can start operating a power project.
The Avion plant,
located within the First Gen Clean Energy Complex in Barangay Bolbok, Batangas
City, was supposed to deliver power during the summer months of 2015.
However, the project
faced delays after IstroenergoGroup (IEG) and its Philippine branch company
Energy Project Completion Ltd. (EPC), contractors for turnkey engineering,
procurement, and construction, failed to comply with their obligations.
Thus, PMPC terminated
the contracts. Slovakian firm IEG was tapped in August 2014 to construct and
commission the Avion plant.
Since then, the Avion
plant has been undergoing commissioning and testing until the COC was issued.
The commissioning and
testing phase of the power facility helped in boosting First Gen’s first half
income this year, which rose 19 percent from $95 million in 2015 to $113
million.
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