CDC serves notice of termination to two power firms

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga – Clark Development Corp. (CDC) authorities have served notice of terminations of service to two power firms to prevent further outages in the economic zone.

CDC executive vice-president Victor Jose Luciano said that the state-owned firm is set to terminate its joint venture agreement with the Clark Power Corp. (CPC) and Clark Electric Distribution Corp. (CEDC) because of the series of power breakdowns in the zone, which affected the operations last month of more than 300 locators.

Cyber City Teleservices here incurred losses of more than $3,500 per minute during the power outages.

Luciano said that CPC and CEDC owe the National Power Corp. (Napocor) at least P80 million, prompting them take over operations a few months ago. This was after the failure of the two power firms to settle their arrears.

CDC president Emmanuel Y. Angeles said that because of the failure of both firms to settle their obligations, Napocor threatened to cut power in the Clark zone. This was, however, not pushed through after Angeles promised that the CDC would settle the obligation of the two power firms.

The Clark Investors and Locators Association (CILA) recently asked the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) to intervene in the power problem inside the zone.

Dennis Uy, vice-president of CILA said that it has recommended the extension of power services of the Angeles Electric Corp. (AEC) to Clark zone hoping that it could solve the power problem in the zone.

Luciano said that the CDC board, chaired by Rizalino Navarro, has authorized AEC to distribute power inside the zone.

Luciano added that CDC is currently negotiating with Mirant, an independent power producer (IPP), on the possibility of asking it to provide electric services to the zone.

According to Luciano, Mirant is capable of producing 256 kilovots of power for Clark, which is forecast to need some 100 megawatts of electricity in the next 100 years.

The Cable Network System located inside the zone also lost millions of pesos during a two-day power interruption, Uy said.