$500M project to connect Mindanao to the national grid

MANILA, Philippines - Mindanao may soon be connected to the national grid after Sy-led National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) earmarked $500 million for the creation of a 400-kilometer transmission line called the Leyte-Mindanao Interconnection Plan (LMIP).

NGCP President Henry Sy, Jr. said the company has already submitted the project amount to the Energy Regulatory Commission and it plans to stick to the specified amount. 

He added that they will bid out the construction of the project.

NGCP Senior Adviser Joseph Ferdinand Dechavez said they already started conducting a hydrographic survey to be finished in the middle of 2014. LMIP is slated for construction in 2016 and expected to be finished in two years.

“We’re not simply just talking about the submarine cable. We’re talking of a very long transmission line, overhead transmission line from both ends. The longer transmission line will be from Surigao going to Cagayan,” he said.

Mindanao, the second-largest group of islands in the Philippines, is not yet connected to the national grid and areas in the region are constantly being plagued by power shortages and intermittent outages.

The Asian Development Bank said the interconnection project will strengthen the “reliability of subsystems, reduced the needed reserve capacity and enables least cost generation expansion."