As NGCP undertakes P10.2 billion projects: DOE urges power players to construct more plants

CEBU, Philippines —  The Department of Energy is encouraging more investors on power to meet the demand following two major projects of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines in Central Visayas classified as energy project of national significance (EPNS).

The projects include the P2.2 billion Cebu-Negros-Panay 230 kilovolt (kV) Backbone Project and the P8 billion Cebu-Bohol 230 kV Interconnection Project.

Engr. Noriel Christopher Reyes of the DOE Electric Power Industry Management Bureau said that initially, prospective investors are asking the government for assistance to streamline requirements.

Projects under the DOE’s EPNS will undergo a streamlined permitting process with required documentation also hastened for faster construction and completion.

Reyes said that aside from inviting more investors on power, they are also fast-tracking the Mindanao-Visayas grid connector.

The Visayas grid will be getting power from Mindanao sources, said Reyes during the Power 101 forum in Cebu City yesterday spearheaded by Global Business Power.

Lorna Manila, the chief of the Project Investment Programming and Budgeting Division of the National Economic and Development Authority, said that the energy committee of the Central Visayas Regional Development Council has pushed the two projects to President Rodrigo Duterte to consider those as EPNS.

The NGCP’s 230kV Cebu-Negros-Panay Backbone project is expected to be completed by December 2020.

It is envisioned to address the limitations on the transfer capacity of the existing Cebu-Negros 138kV Submarine cable and it will facilitate the connection of the proposed transmission line from Toledo City.

The development of new power plants, including baseload and renewable, in Panay and Negros Islands will result in the increase in power exchange between the islands of Panay, Negros and Cebu.

Currently, the existing Negros-Panay interconnection system has reportedly limited capacity to accommodate the transmission of excess power from Panay towards Negros.

In order to ensure the effective transmission of excess power generation from Panay and Negros towards Cebu, a high capacity transmission corridor is being proposed and this will serve as the stage 3 or the final stage for the Cebu-Negros-Panay 230 kV Backbone Project.

The project involves the construction of 230 kV facilities that will extend from Barotac Viejo Substation in Panay to a new Magdugo Substation in Cebu.

It will be primarily composed of overhead transmission lines, submarine cable interconnections and corresponding new substation facilities.

Also the Cebu-Bohol 230 kV Interconnection Project will provide additional transmission towards Bohol to avoid power interruption during the outage of the Leyte-Bohol 138kV Interconnection which is projected to be overloaded by 2020.

The 230-kV Cebu-Bohol interconnection has a power transfer capacity of 400 megawatts, almost six times larger than the 90-MW capacity of the existing link from Leyte.

This power link includes a 29-kilometer overhead line from Dumanjug to Argao in Cebu; a 30-km Argao submarine cable from Argao, Cebu to Loon, Bohol; and a 26-km overhead line from Loon to the substation in Corella in Bohol.

The Central Visayas RDC has already requested President Duterte to intervene in the Cebu-Bohol interconnection and Cebu-Negros-Panay backbone projects and include it in the EPNS.

Meanwhile, the NGCP has begun construction of the P52 billion Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) which will link Mindanao to the already connected Luzon-Visayas Grid and is targeted for completion in December 2020.

The MVIP was also classified in May 2018 by the DOE as an EPNS.

The project’s cable terminal stations in the Municipality of Santander in Cebu, and Dapitan City in Zamboanga del Norte will serve as the landing points of the two 92-kilometer submarine cables that will carry around 450 MW of power from the Visayas and Mindanao, and vice versa.  JMD (FREEMAN)