By
Lenie Lectura - September 26, 2018
SAN
Buenaventura Power Ltd. (SBPL), a partnership between Meralco PowerGen (MGen)
and New Growth BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Electricity Generating Public
Co. Ltd. (Egco Group) of Thailand, is seeking regulatory approval to construct
a transmission facility that will connect its 500-megawatt (MW) coal plant to
the Luzon grid.
In a 14-page
application, SBPL put the cost to set up a dedicated facility project at
P242,956,734.
SBPL proposed to
develop and construct a dedicated point-to-point facility that will connect the
coal plant to the Luzon grid through the Tayabas substation of
the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) by connecting to
the existing QPPL (Quezon Power Philippines Limited Co.) connection asset,
which comprises the Mauban substation and a 230-kilovolt transmission line.
According to the Energy
Regulatory Commission, SBPL’s application is “sufficient in substance,” with
the required fees having been paid. “The same is hereby set for determination
of compliance with the jurisdictional requirements, expository presentation,
pretrial conference and presentation of evidence on November 6,” the ERC said
in its September 4 order. Last August, MGen said the construction of the
country’s first coal-fired power plant in the country to use supercritical
technology is 90-percent complete.
“SBPL is on its
31st month of EPC [engineering, procurement and construction]
implementation with overall progress at almost 90 percent and is on track
for project completion in September 2019,” said MGen President Rogelio Singson.
The company tapped the
consortium of Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corp. as the EPC
contractor for the project.
SBPL achieved financial
close for the power project in December 2015 for a total debt of P42.1 billion.
The electricity to
be generated by the plant will be sold to Meralco, the country’s largest
distribution utility, under a 20-year power supply agreement. Singson added
that this project would bring in additional revenues to Meralco in 2020.
The SBPL power plant
will play a crucial role as electricity demand grows, especially in Luzon which
accounts for about 70 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
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