For the Negros-Panay line, TransCo president Alan T. Ortiz disclosed that three parties have already indicated interest to join the bidding for its turnkey contract; namely Nexans-Reva; Asea Brown Boveri and Kanematsu.
As targeted, this network which will complete the Mactan-Cebu; Cebu-Negros and Negros-Panay loop, would be due for implementation early next year.
"These are all related to Panay, which is very delicate, we need to double time laying submarine cables and we need to build baseload capacity," he said.
Indications have been set out earlier that consumers in Panay island are facing possibility of power outages within this week; if Panay Power would be forced to shut down operations because of huge losses it is incurring; arising from non-payment of the utility firm it is supplying to, the Panay Electric Company.
This dilemma is being sorted out by various parties involved; with the Energy Regulatory Commission already promising to step in.
It would be noted that based on a report released by the TransCo’s Corporate Planning Group, growths in electricity demand are both expected in Visayas and Mindanao; thus, strengthening of the transmission network is keenly focused on these areas.
For the last nine months, it was shown that power transmitted to the Visayas and Mindanao grids increased by 2.0-percent and 3.0-percent respectively over the same period last year with Visayas accounting for 7,825 megawatt-month and Mindanao for 10,908 MW-month of the total power delivered this year.
In view of this, Ortiz assured that his company will consistently work on several interconnection and uprating projects to respond to the steadily increasing power demands in Visayas and Mindanao.
Overall, the company noted that it was able to deliver a total of 76,441 MW-month of power to the country’s major electricity grids from January to September this year. Power delivery measured in MWmonth refers to the sum of TransCo’s monthly billing demand in megawatts.
Power delivery in the Luzon grid was reported to have remained flat compared to same period in 2004 owing to the 1.5 percent decrease in power wheeling to the country’s giant utility firm, Manila Electric Company (Meralco), which accounts for almost 73-percent of the power TransCo delivers to the grid.
The power delivery uptick in the Visayas has been attributed to the 1.8 percent increase in the power requirements of distribution utilities which represent 88-percent of the total power delivery in the grid; with higher power demands recorded for Central Negros Electric Coop, Negros Oriental II Electric Coop, Aklan Electric Coop, and Bohol I Electric Coop.
In the case of industrial customers, Alturas Group of Companies and San Miguel Corporation posted an increase of 40 percent and 31 percent respectively in their power requirements, adding to the load from newly connected Visayas grid customer Dynasty Management & Development Corp.
In the Mindanao grid, the delivery upsurge came mainly from distribution utilities’ demand which grew by three percent or 273 MW-month.
The rising demand of utilities such as Davao Light & Power Corp., South Cotabato Electric Coop II and Agusan del Norte Coop contributed to the load growth.
Power delivery to Mindanao industrial customers, on one hand, increased considerably with Global Steel Works International climbing by as much as 115 percent and Dole Philippines by 18.8 percent.
These increases were reported to have been leveled off by the decline in the demand of other industrial customers like Maria Cristina Chemical Inc., Iligan Cement Corp., and Philippine Sinter Corp.
In Luzon, power delivery reached 57,708 MWmonth, slightly down from the 58,235 MW-month posted in the same period last year. In terms of power source, 70 percent of power delivered in Luzon came from National Power Corporation, 29 percent from Meralco independent power producers (IPPs), and 1 percent from other smaller generating units. (MMV)
