November 1, 2017 By Victor V. Saulon, Sub-Editor
GLOBAL BUSINESS Power Corp. (GBPC)
is developing a pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant in the Visayas with an
initial capacity of 100 megawatts (MW) that it plans to use as back up power to
the grid operator, its top official said.
“We’re proposing it now to NGCP
(National Grid Corporation of the Philippines),” said GBPC President Jaime T.
Azurin in a chance interview, adding the company is in the development stage
for the project but the eventual capacity would depend on the need of NGCP.
With this type of power plant, water
is stored from a lower elevation reservoir to a higher one, and then the stored
water is released through turbines to produce electricity.
NGCP, the grid operator, has called
on merchant plants or independent power producers to participate in the
provision of ancillary services or transmission reserve capacity that is needed
to maintain power quality, reliability and the security of the grid.
“You can craft it in such a way that
will address their requirements,” Mr. Azurin said.
He said the power plant’s location
will likely to be in the Visayas as the company plans to connect it to the
230-kilovolt transmission line being developed by NGCP to serve the
Cebu-Negros-Panay area. However, he declined to disclose the exact location of
the proposed plant.
“We’ll complete it in 2022,” Mr.
Azurin said, to coincide with the target completion of the Visayas transmission
backbone and the planned interconnection of the Visayas and the Mindanao grids.
The plant will be GBPC’s first
venture into renewable energy, which it plans to account for at least 10% of
the company’s total capacity. GBPC is targeting to reach a capacity of 1,500 to
2,000 MW in five years, a goal that is around double its current 854 MW.
GBPC has a total gross capacity of
854 MW in the Visayas through subsidiaries Panay Energy Development Corp.
(PEDC) with 314-MW, Toledo Power Co. with 182 MW, Cebu Energy Development Corp.
with 246 MW, Panay Power Corp. with 104.5 MW and GBH Power Resources, Inc. with
7.5 MW.
In Luzon, GBPC is putting up two
identical units of 335-MW coal-friend power in Luna, La Union.
In June, Alsons Consolidated
Resources, Inc. announced GBPC’s acquisition of a 50% stake in Alsons Thermal
Energy Corp., which holds the Alcantara’s baseload coal-fired power plant
assets. The acquired company owns 75% of the 210-megawatt (MW) Sarangani Energy
Corp. coal-fired power plant in Maasim, Sarangani province.
“We’re now on the final conditions
precedent, or CPs. Once that is done, [our entry is] formalized,” he said.
Mr. Azurin said GBPC is also
planning to put up a 30-MW biomass plant that uses agricultural waste to
produce electricity.
He said the plan would be dependent
on the Department of Energy (DoE) extending the guaranteed feed-in-tariff (FiT)
for biomass projects by another three to five years. The FiT, which ends this
year, has been recommended for extension by the National Renewable Energy
Board, an advisory body to the DoE.
“I hope they do it a little bit
[longer] – three to five years, because it takes about more than two years to
construct,” he said.
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