Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- February 26, 2018 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Energy
Regulatory Commission (ERC) has approved the ancillary services procurement
agreement (ASPA) between the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) and
Phinma Energy Corp.
The deal will ensure secure power supply and
competitive electricity prices in the Visayas grid until 2022.
Based on the ERC approval, the applicable rates for
the ASPA would be P1.25 per kilowatt-hour (kwh).
Under a non-firm basis, NGCP will contract up to 32
megawatts (MW) of dispatchable reserve (DR) from Phinma Energy’s diesel-fired
Power Barges (PB) 101 and 102.
DR refers to the generating capacity readily available
for dispatch in order to replenish the contingency reserve service whenever a
generating unit trips or a loss of a single transmission interconnection
occurs.
“The contracted capacity for DR is 32 MW per
generation facility and shall be made available at all times for NGCP’s
instruction and dispatch, except upon the existence of any of the circumstances
specified in the ASPA,” the joint application said.
The power barges have four generating units with a
rated capacity of 32 MW for each power plant. PB 101 has a valid certificate of
compliance (COC) until April 9, 2021, while PB 102’s COC is valid until March
2021.
The COCs, issued by the ERC, are required to
commercially operate a power plant or other facilities used in generation of
electricity.
Phinma has no power supply agreements for these power
plants and currently trades its generated capacity on the wholesale electricity
spot market.
In their application, NGCP and Phinma sought for a
provisional authority since the current levels of DR in the Visayas Grid has
not yet met the required levels to ensure reliability and security of the grid.
With Phinma providing additional ancillary services,
it will ensure competition between and among providers “which will ultimately
initiate a downward pressure to current prices,” the firms said.
In the ERC approval, the DR rate of Phinma is lower
than that of San Roque Power Corp. at P1.50 per kwh and comparable with those
of CIP II and 1590 EC at P1.25 per kwh and PanAsia’s Limay diesel plant at
P1.12 per kwh.
Investors are now expected to have investors coming in
as the ASPA ensures system reliability and stability in the power grid.
“NGCP and PHINMA likewise stressed that absence of
system reliability and stability discourages investments and growth, thus,
necessitates the immediate issuance of Provisional Approval of the subject ASPA
to maintain the reliability and security of the grid,” the two firms said.
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