PSALM to rebid Sorsogon power plant

The Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) will rebid the 0.4-megawatt (MW) Cawayan hydro electric power plant in Sorsogon within this month, a top compay official said yesterday.

PSALM vice president Froilan Tampinco said the rebidding followed a failure in the original bidding for the power facility last June 29.

"We will start the bidding process again and conduct another bidding within the month of July," Tampinco said.

He said PSALM did not accept the offers made by the bidders as the offers "did not meet our expectation," he said.

Since March this year, PSALM was able to sell three power plants of the National Power Corp. (Napocor). These are the 3.5-MW Talomo hydropower plant, the 1.6-MW Agusan River hydropower plant and the 1.8-MW Barit hydropower plant.

The Barit facility was won by Atty. Ramon I. Constancio with a bid of $480,000.

The Talomo plant in Davao, meanwhile, went to Aboitiz-owned Hydro Electric Development Corp. with a bid of $1.37 million in March.

Lopez-owned energy firm First Generation Holdings, on the other hand, gave the highest bid for the Agusan plant with its offer of $1.5 million in public bid proceedings last June 4.

Energy Secretary Vincent Perez, who also chairs Napocor’s and Privatization, Bids and Award Committee (PBAC), said series of biddings "demonstrates the government’s unquestionable resolve to reform the electric industry."

"With government stepping up its privatization drive, investors can soon expect bigger power plants in the bid line up. Among those scheduled for the second semester is the 600-megawatt Masinloc coal power plant," Perez added.