Aboitiz to upgrade Naga Power Plant Complex

MANILA, Philippines - AboitizPower Corp. is planning to upgrade 153.1-megawatt (MW) Naga Power Plant Complex (NPPC) in Cebu once the facility is formally turned over to them, its top official said.

AboitizPower CEO Erramon Aboitiz said they are awaiting the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) to turn over the facility to wholly-owned unit Therma Power Visayas Inc. (TPVI).

Once it is under TPVI, the immediate plan is to upgrade the power plant. “The idea would be to upgrade the facility and put up a more efficient power plant,” he said.

The facility also has room for additional capacity, but there is no final plan yet for that, Aboitiz said.

In 2013, PSALM auctioned off the power plant and only TPVI and SPC Power Corp. participated in the public bidding.

The Aboitiz firm emerged as the top bidder with a P1.09-billion offer versus SPC’s P858.99 million. However, SPC exercised its right to top the winning bid of TPVI with a payment of P1.14 billion, based on its NPPC-Land Lease Agreement (LLA) with PSALM executed in 2009.

But in October 2016, the Supreme Court ordered state-run PSALM to award the contract to rehabilitate NPPC to TPVI.

The high court annulled and set aside the asset purchase agreement (NPPC – APA) and the LLA between SPC and PSALM and directed PSALM to execute the NPPC-APA and the NPPC-LLA in favor of TPVI.

The SC has upheld its ruling in Jan. 9, saying the NPPC should be awarded to TPVI.

The NPPC contract is a 25-year lease over the land containing the Naga complex.

Located in Colon, Naga City, the power facility consists of two thermal power plants and one diesel-fired power plant that use a combination of coal, bunker oil and diesel as fuel.

It consists of the 52.5-MW Cebu 1 and 56.8-MW Cebu 2 coal-fired thermal power plants, and the 43.8-MW Cebu diesel power plant composed of six 7.3-MW bunker oil power units.