Rehab of Agus complex to start in ’12

National Power Corp. (Napocor) is hoping to start by next year the P3.65-billion rehabilitation of Agus-Pulangi hydropower complex in Mindanao to help improve the generating capability of these facilities.

The proposed dredging activities at the 255-megawatt Pulangi and the equipment rehabilitation at a unit of the 700-MW Agus plants were deemed crucial in ensuring the reliability of power supply in Mindanao, since the island gets more than half of its electricity requirements from this hydropower complex.

As it is, the dependable capacity of these two power plants is much lower, at about 700 MW combined, according to Napocor president Froilan A. Tampinco.

Tampinco said the rehabilitation of Agus 6 would increase the capacity of the said unit to 69 MW from the current 52 MW, at a cost of P2.45 billion. This particular unit was the first of the seven Agus units constructed. It started operations in the 1950s.

The project, however, has yet to be approved by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Board.

It received earlier this year the go-ahead from the NEDA-Investment Coordination Committee, an interagency committee mandated to evaluate major capital projects with respect to their technical, financial, economic, social, environmental and institutional development viability. It is the body that recommends projects to the NEDA Board.

In the meantime, Napocor is expecting to spend between P600 million and P1.2 billion to conduct a selective dredging for the Pulangi hydropower plant. The amount will depend on the areas that will be dredged, according to Tampinco.

“We are waiting for the final results of the analysis that will determine which area to specifically dredge because we do not believe on just simply dredging the entire water system there. (If we do that) we’ll be spending resources unwisely,” he said.

Tampinco clarified that for Pulangi, the dredging activities would mean that the facility would have a bigger holding volume that would ensure the reliability of its operations. The capacity, he noted, would remain the same.

Since the Agus and Pulangi hydropower complexes supply power to the main grid, the funds for the planned rehabilitation will have to come from another state agency, Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), which was tasked to handle the privatization and maintenance of Napocor’s power generation assets and contracted capacities, and to clean up the power firm’s debts.