TransCo may shoulder VisMin grid connection

MANILA, Philippines -  The National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) is contemplating if it will shoulder the cost of building the long-delayed Visayas-Mindanao grid connection to unburden consumers, its top official said.

In a briefing yesterday, TransCo president and CEO Melvin Matibag said the state-run firm is studying whether government could  pay for the P52-billion cost of the interconnection project.

This instead of having the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) shoulder the project cost and eventually recover the cost of the transmission projects from its consumers, he said.

“I want to look for a way that the cost of the connection is not passed on to consumers,” Matibag said. “Apparently, the ballpark figure is around P52 billion so that will be an additional cost to the consumer.”

NGCP clinched a 25-year concession to run the country’s transmission network after it took over the management of the power grid in 2008 from TransCo.

One of the options TransCo is looking at is including the Visayas-Mindanao grid interconnection under its General Appropriations Act (GAA), Matibag said.

“I’m having some representation from our Congress, I’m thinking if it can be included into the GAA. But it’s not yet final since I’m just thinking of ways so consumers will no longer bear the cost of that interconnection,” he said.

NGCP recently announced it has completed the hydrographic survey determining the viable location for the Visayas-Mindanao grid interconnection along the country’s western seaboard – beginning in Cebu and terminating in Dipolog.

Barring unforeseen circumstances and unavoidable delays, the project is estimated to be completed by December 2020, the grid operator said.

Currently, only Luzon and Visayas are interconnected while Mindanao is isolated. Interconnection between Luzon and Visayas allows both grids to get supply from each other in times of supply shortfall.

The power grid interconnection, which will allow the sharing of excess electricity via submarine cables and overhead transmission lines, was first proposed in the 1980s.

NGCP has conducted previous studies to implement the project but encountered geophysical issues in the eastern side, which traverses from Southern Leyte to Surigao del Norte.