Napocor completes electrification of 100 barangays

The state-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) has announced the completion of its barangay electrification project.

Napocor said more than 100 barangays in the various islands in the country under the Napocor’s Small Power Utilities Group (Napocor-SPUG) now enjoy electricity with the completion of the said project.

It said the project was undertaken by the company as part of its mandate to provide electricity to off-grid islands through missionary electrification.

Created in 1988, the SPUG was organized to provide adequate electricity at subsidized rates to off-grid islands and isolated municipalities in the Philippines, hinged on the concept that affordable electricity rates would pump-prime the local economy and thus improve the standard of living in the islands.

SPUG provides integrated services to these off-grid missionary areas, from power generation to power transmission, covering 77 areas all over the archipelago.

SPUG vice president Lorenzo S. Marcelo announced the completion of the project, with the energization of a total of 1,550 households in 38 barangays in Northern Samar and Antique, and the completion of the 48.85 circuit-kilometer, 69-kilovolt Mobo-Aroroy transmission line in Masbate.

“This project is just one of many Napocor-SPUG has on the pipeline to fulfill our mandate of providing electricity to the remotest islands in the country, as well as the government’s promise to make electricity available where and when it is needed, at affordable rates,” he said.

Marcelo added that given that power markets are now driven by competition, the challenge for Napocor-SPUG begins only in assuring the electrification of the off-grid small island areas, but more significantly, to transform them into viable enterprises for private investment.

“SPUG today faces the challenge of meeting the continuing rise in demand, addressing this in terms of capacity build up, system upgrading, heat rate improvement, and increase in daily service hours for smaller islands,” Marcelo said.

SPUG also built and operates 69kV transmission line systems including power substations in five major island provinces in Luzon. To date, SPUG has 775 circuit kilometers of 69kV transmission lines and an aggregate substation capacity of 141 MVA. Programmed expansions on the 69kV systems include 355 circuit kilometers of transmission lines and 85MVA combined substation capacity.

In 2005, the Department of Energy (DOE), through a circular, has mandated the privatization of 14 areas under SPUG to help boost economic activity.

As a result of this program, SPUG has so far turned-over five island-provinces to private entities, namely: Power One Corp. in Oriental Mindoro, Catanduanes, and Southern Palawan; Bantayan Island Power Corporation in Bantayan Island, Cebu; and D.M. Consunji Holdings Inc. in Masbate.

These brings to eight the number of missionary electrification areas that have been privatized, or more than half of the 14 first-wave areas for privatization that were earlier identified.