Bacon-Manito rehabilitation faces 60-day delay
Energy Development Corp., the country’s largest producer of geothermal energy, expects the completion of the rehabilitation of the 130-megawatt Bacon-Manito geothermal power plants in Albay and Sorsogon to be delayed by 60 days.
Although the BacMan facilities were able to generate and sell P400 million worth of electricity during the testing stage in the first half of the year, the delay may still have a negative impact on the company’s 2012 earnings.
The Lopez affiliate expressed confidence, however, that it would be able to complete both the commissioning and reliability runs for the Bacman geothermal plants within the year, in time to declare full commerciality and achieve a full year of commercial operations in 2013.
Once operational, EDC expects the power plants in Albay and Sorsogon to generate some P4.3 billion in revenues annually.
EDC originally expected to complete the rehabilitation by September this year.
The 60-day delay, which will push completion to November 2012, stemmed from the company’s decision to re-blade two stages of the turbine rotor of Units 1 and 2, to address a failure that was identified in June 2012 after an inspection.
“The root cause of this emergent issue is known and new blades have been ordered. These blades will be delivered within the next four weeks and the installation of these is now the critical path activity. Installation will take place in September and October,” EDC explained.
“The repair works on the generator rotors of both Units 1 and 2 are nearing completion in Alstom’s workshop in Stafford, England. The issue with both the 55-MW generator rotors has been resolved and we expect the units to be on site by September 2012,” it added.
The 20-MW Unit 3 generator is still undergoing repair and testing works in the Philippines, and is expected to be commissioned by November 2012.
Despite the delay, EDC said the final cost of the rehabilitation and upgrade works would not be too far off from the $66 million estimate (roughly P2.8 billion).
