AboitizPower plans to rehabilitate Naga Power Plant

MANILA, Philippines — Aboitiz Power Corp. plans to rehabilitate the diesel-fired power plants of the  153.1-megawatt (MW) Naga Power Plant Complex (NPPC) after taking over the facility.

AboitizPower will shut down the diesel-fired plant in the complex to assess their condition, AboitizPower COO Emmanuel Rubio said.

The company will tap a consultant to conduct an assessment on the NPPC diesel facilities.

“We have no idea how the plant has been operated in the past years,” Rubio said. “We’re looking at probably a proper assessment on the condition, maybe one and a half months, including the decision on who to actually get as consultants.”

The assessment will help the company finalize the rehabilitation plan on the NPPC facilities.

“After the assessment of the condition, we will decide what level of rehab we actually need to do in Naga to make those units that are there available again,” Rubio said.

He said rehabilitation per unit could take three months each.

Last week, state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) turned over NPPC to Therma Power Visayas Inc. (TPVI), a unit of AboitizPower.

This was in accordance with the Supreme Court’s final decision in October 2016. The SC decision also reinstated the Notice of Award dated April 30, 2014 in favor of TPVI.

PSALM issued the Certificate of Effectivity of the Asset Purchase Agreement last May 18 which TPVI accepted on May 23. SPC returned NPPC to PSALM on July 13.

The NPPC contract is a 25-year lease over the land containing the Naga complex. Located in Colon, Naga City, the  power facility consists of two thermal power plants and one diesel-fired power plant that use a combination of coal, bunker oil, and diesel as fuel.

Specifically, it consists of the 52.5-MW Cebu 1 and 56.8-MW Cebu 2 coal-fired thermal power plants, and the 43.8-MW Cebu diesel power plant composed of six 7.3-MW bunker oil power units.

The company’s interest in the project was only on the diesel-fired power plants and not the coal plant, Rubio said.

“Initially, we bought it for the plant that was there, the coal plant was not there anymore. It was not operating anymore,” he said.

“It’s not in a condition where you want to rehabilitate and run it again. That’s not our plan,” Rubio said.

AboitizPower is targeting to reach an attributable net sellable capacity to 4,000 megawatts (MW) by 2020. Currently, the company has a beneficial capacity of 3,000 MW and will end the year at around 3,600 MW.