420 MW to be added to Pagbilao capacity
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and Marubeni Corp. announced last week that the 420-megawatt (MW) expansion of the Pagbilao thermal power plant in Quezon province would start this June.
A consortium of Philippine and Japanese firms will undertake the expansion.
Pagbilao Unit 3 will be built on the same site as the existing 735-MW Pagbilao units 1 and 2 within the Pagbilao Power Station.
TeaM Energy Corp. (TEC), the local joint venture firm of Tepco and Marubeni, operates the existing facility.
TeaM Energy said the chosen engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firms were issued a commencement notice on May 30.
The 420-MW coal-fired Pagbilao Unit 3 is expected to be completed by November 2017.
Implementing the expansion is Pagbilao Energy Corp. (PEC), which is composed of TPEC Holdings Corp. (TPEC Holdings) and Therma Power Inc., wholly owned subsidiaries of TEC and Aboitiz Power Corp., respectively.
The EPC contractors are Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd. (MHPS) and Daelim Industrial Company of Korea. MHPS will be responsible for the supply of the project’s major components such as boiler, steam turbine and generator. Daelim will supply the balance of plant equipment and take charge of civil engineering and installation work.
“The project is a response to the government’s call to the private sector to build additional capacity that will help address the country’s development needs,” TEC president and CEO Federico E. Puno said. “Unlike our current generating units which are covered by energy conversion agreements with the government, Pagbilao Unit 3 will be a merchant plant. Its output can service the needs of distribution utilities, large-scale industrial and residential users.”
Upon completion of the project, they said, Marubeni’s power assets in the Philippines would grow to about 4,000 MW gross, or about 25 percent of the total installed capacity in the country.
“With high economic growth, demand for social infrastructure is expected to increase continuously in the Philippines. Marubeni is committed to the development of the country [by providing] stable and efficient power supply,” Tepco and Marubeni said in a joint statement.
TeaM Energy is one of the largest Independent Power Producers in the country with over 2,000 megawatts of installed generating capacity in Luzon.
Aside from the Pagbilao plant, TeaM Energy operates another clean coal facility, the 1,218 MW Sual power station in Pangasinan. It also has a 20 percent stake in the Ilijan natural gas plant in Batangas. Riza T. Olchondra
