DoE scouting for investors in new power plants for Luzon

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Energy (DoE) is seeking investors that can build power generation facilities that can produce as much as 1,500 megawatts by 2017 to further secure Luzon’s power supply by that time.

At the sidelines of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (Finex) meeting on Wednesday, Energy Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras said the current committed power projects at the moment could only secure adequate baseload power supply up to 2016.

“The ideal situation is to have another 1,500 MW by 2017 to address the increase in demand on that year. We have to talk about these things as early as now, that’s why we’re encouraging companies to look at 2017 power generation, greenfield or expansions,” Almendras said.

He further said that these facilities might use coal or alternative fuels like natural gas. He, however, declined to bare parties which have expressed interest in his proposal.

According to Almendras, the 600-MW facility of the GN Power, which will start operating by December 2012, is expected to take care of the expected increase in power demand in 2013 and 2014, while the 600-MW coal power plant of Redondo Peninsula Energy Inc. (RP Energy), which is targeted to go online by 2015, will address the demand growth in 2015 and 2016.

The energy chief also bared ongoing talks with the private sector to pursue expansion projects such as the expansion of the 600-MW Masinloc coal facility in Zambales, currently owned and operated by US giant AES Corp.

Data from the DoE, meanwhile, showed that the government has been expecting several committed power projects to resume or start operating this year, including the 21-MW bunker power plant of CIP II Power Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp. and Green Future’s 13-MW biomass project.

On top of these, there are 15 indicative projects in Luzon that included, among others, the 86-MW Burgos wind farm project of Energy Development Corp., the country’s largest producer of geothermal energy; and Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp.’s 135-MW coal project, which is being developed in partnership with Ayala’s AC Energy, among others.

The energy chief earlier disclosed that he had already signed service contracts for hydropower projects that could generate almost 2,000 MW for the Luzon grid alone.

At present, Luzon enjoys hefty power supply reserves usually ranging between 1,700 MW and 2,000 MW. As of Wednesday, however, reserves stood at only 852 MW.