As the operation and maintenance (O&M) provider for the 620-megawatt Limay thermal power plant acquired by San Miguel Energy Corporation (SMEC), Alstom Philippines Inc. has announced locally the acquisition of its parent firm of a transmission firm from French energy giant Areva, counting on the benefits the deal would have on their areas of operations globally.

Alstom is expecting that the operational efficiencies they can gain from the Areva acquisition, which catapulted the creation of its third sector, the Alstom Grid, will have positive bandwagon effect on their various markets, including the Philippines.

In an announcement made in Paris by Alstom chief executive officer Patrick Kron, he noted that “Alstom Grid, which is Alstom’s high voltage transmission business, will be its third sector alongside power and transport. This sector will benefit from all the synergies and all the resources that the Group has, particularly in its international network having a presence in 70 countries, its technological and industrial capabilities and in the existing links between the high-voltage electricity transmission and power generation business.”

Alstom entered the Philippines at the time when it was trying to plug capacity gaps to solve its worst power crisis in the 1990s, mainly as O&M provider to power generation facilities. Its contract for the Limay facility had actually lapsed prior to the facility’s privatization but it was tapped to stretch such arrangement especially so since the Limay plant was badly needed when the Luzon grid was suffering from recurrent supply shortages starting February this year.

Its parent company noted that the transmission asset acquisition from Areva was valued at 2.3 billion euros; and this is seen widening further Alstom’s sale base which already reached 23 billion euros in 2009. The company employs more than 96,000 people across its operations worldwide.

The newly-installed president of Alstom Grid, Henri Poupart-Lafarge emphasized that their transmission unit “brings its customers more than 100 years of experience in the development of the world electrical grids, advanced technologies and expertise in key domains such as power electronics, ultra high voltage, direct current connections, integration of renewable into the grid and network management solutions.” It can be culled that Asia-Pacific is one of Alstom’s major operational markets, ranking second in sales size, next to the Middle-East Africa region. The other key jurisdictions for its operations are Europe and the Americas.