Power woes pile up as power plant project encounters delay

MANILA, Philippines - The country’s energy woes continue to pile up after another power firm said its 150-megawatt coal-fired power plant expansion will be delayed and will not be ready for the summer of 2015.

DMCI Holdings of the Consunji Group is expanding its existing 600-MW Calaca coal-fired power plant in Batangas to eventually bring the total capacity to 1,250 MW. The first phase of the expansion involves the construction of two units of a 150-MW circulating bed power plant for a total of 300 MW while the second phase involves a single unit of 350 MW.

Originally, the plan was to have the first 150-MW unit ready by the end of the year but this was moved to March 2015 and then moved again to June 2015, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla said.

“DMCI’s plant will be delayed. There’s no specific reason. My suspicion is that their EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor will not be able to deliver on time,” he said.

DMCI Power Corp. president Nelson Dadivas said the company is still trying to have the first unit ready by April or May.

“We’re trying to start testing. The commissioning target for the first unit by April to May,” Dadivas said yesterday.

The second phase expansion of a single unit of 350MW is still under evaluation, he added.

Petilla said the DMCI plant is supposed to be the biggest plant coming in before the summer of 2015.

Aside from the DMCI plant, Energy World Corp., an Australia-listed power company, also targeted to be online in December 2014, based on the timetables released by the Department of Energy.

Nevertheless, EWC chief executive officer Stewart Elliot told The STAR in August that the company is working closely with the DOE to accelerate the plant’s commissioning and “bring it in early part of next year.”

The delays in the commissioning of power plants add to the growing number of energy woes the country will be facing in the summer of 2015 when there is a projected power supply shortage of 800 MW.

According to the DOE, the Luzon grid will need 9,011 MW of power next year, higher than this year’s demand of 8,717 MW on the back of the projected growth in the economy.