‘Coal plants to boost Luzon grid capacity’

By Lenie Lectura – October 12, 2020
from Business Mirror

Nearly 6,000 megawatts (MW) of total power generation capacity would be added to the Luzon grid until 2025, the Department of Energy (DOE) said.

A report released Monday showed that bulk of the committed power projects as of August this year are coal-fired power plants, which make up 3,436MW of the total committed capacity.

Power plants fueled by natural gas came in next with 1,750MW, representing a 29.7-percent share of the entire committed capacity.

Third in the list are renewable energy (RE) based power facilities with a total committed capacity of 404MW, or 6.8 percent.  Of which, committed solar power projects would contribute 255MW; wind, 132MW; and biomass, 17MW.

Oil-based power plants, with a total capacity of 311MW, have been committed by various power producers. These, represent 5.3 percent of the total committed projects.

Aside from the 5,901 MW of committed capacity for Luzon, the grid will also take in 430MW of capacity from Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).

Under coal-fired power plants, 300MW will come from AES Masinloc Power Partners Co., Inc.’s Masinloc expansion project in Zambales by December this year; 1336MW from GNPower Dinginin Coal Plant Ltd. Co. by 2021; 1,200MW from Atimonan One Energy by second quarter of 2024; and 600MW from Redondo Peninsula Energy, Inc.

For oil-based power projects, Ingrid Power Holdings Inc. has committed 300MW by March 2021 while Supreme Power Corp. committed to add 11.04MW by August next year.

The 650MW natural gas power projects of Energy World Corp. and 1,100MW of Batangas Clean Energy, Inc. will come online by December 2022 and 2025, respectively.

For biomass, the commitment of Hypergreen Energy Corp. (12MW) and Isabela La Suerte Rice Mill Corp. (5MW) is to deliver these within the year.

The solar power projects of Energy Logics Philippines, Inc. (100MW), Solarace Energy Corp. (120MW), Petrosolar Corp. (20MW), Solar Philippines Tarlac Corp. (15MW) are expected to come online between this year up to December 2021.

The 132MW wind power project of Energy Logics Philippines, Inc. will be operational by December this year.

For BESS, all 10 projects are committed by SMC Global Power. These will all be operational by January 2021.

On the average, electricity demand in Luzon normally increases anywhere from 600 to 800 MW every year.

At end-2019, Luzon’s installed capacity stood at 16,633MW while dependable capacity was at 15,095MW.

In 2019, peak demand in Luzon stood at 11,344MW. Based on historical data, the DOE said when the Philippines experienced an expanding economy or a positive GDP growth rate, that expansion was directly proportional to electricity consumption. The country’s GDP grew 5.9 percent in 2019.