Meralco bags deal to supply power to New Clark City

By Lenie Lectura - February 7, 2019

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/02/07/meralco-bags-deal-to-supply-power-to-new-clark-city/

THE Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) bagged the contract to supply power to New Clark City.

“We received the notice of award.  We’re going to comply with those condition precedents so we can already sign the joint-venture [JV] agreement,” Meralco utility economics head Lawrence Fernandez said.

The notice was awarded on January 18, he added. 

“The next milestone is [the] signing of the JV agreement, but we have to submit other documents to the Bases Conversion [and] Development Authority [BCDA]. We’re compiling those, along with our consortium partners,” Fernandez said.

The Meralco-Marubeni Consortium composed of Meralco, Marubeni, The Kansai Electric Power Co. Inc. and Chubu Electric Power Co. Inc., submitted the lower tariff bid of P0.6188 per kilowatt hour, besting the P0.9888/kwh proposal by the Aboitiz-Kepco Consortium of the Olongapo Energy Corp. and Kepco Philippines Holdings Inc.

The 9,450-hectare New Clark City, located within the Clark special economic zone that spans Angeles City in Pampanga and the towns of Capas and Bamban in Tarlac, is the country’s first smart, disaster resilient, and sustainable city.

The first phase of the development covering 60 hectares features the National Government Administrative Center that will house backup offices of various government agencies and a world-class sports complex now being constructed in time for the 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

The new metropolis will also have mixed-use residential, commercial, agro-industrial, educational institutions and information-technology developments.

Meralco has yet to come up with an investment cost, saying it is awaiting from the BCDA the forecast load in New Clark City.

“Our commitment is to provide service in time for the SEA games. The requirement for us is to have a substation ready to receive power. We’ll need to agree with [the] BCDA, which is the JV partner, what the forecasted load will be and then we’ll match the requirement based on the forecasted load,” he said.

“We have an initial forecast, but as a JV partner, we will need the agreement of BCDA on the forecast that we will adopt. We will discuss this first with BCDA,” he said.