DOE certifies 2 more power projects as ‘nationally significant’
By Lenie Lectura – September 17, 2018
from Business Mirror
THE Department of Energy (DOE) has certified two more power projects as “Project of National Significance” under Executive Order (EO) 30.
On September 11 the agency approved the application of Atimonan One Energy Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen), the power generation arm of Meralco.
Atimonan is putting up the country’s first ultra-supercritical coal power plant in Atimonan, Quezon. The facility’s capacity is 2 x 600 megawatts (MW).
The Atimonan project, MGen President Rogelio Singson, said is shovel-ready to start construction.
The DOE also declared the 151.2-MW Talim wind-power project of Island Wind Energy Corp. as “a project of national significance.”
The project, still in its predevelopment stage, was certified under EO 30 on August 30. It is located in Talim Island, Binangonan and Cardona, Rizal. The target commercial operations date of the first 80-MW plant is in June 2020 and the 70-MW plant in June 2021.
The DOE earlier declared the Kalinga geothermal-power project of Aragorn Power and Energy Corp. , the power unit of Sy-led APC Group Inc., as an energy project of national significance.
The DOE approved Aragorn’s application on August 14.
The project is in its predevelopment stage, involving the development of steam fields that can generate anywhere between 100 MW and 200 MW.
In May the DOE certified the Visayas-Mindanao Interconnection Project (VMIP) as the first power project under EO 30.
The VMIP involves the interconnection of the Visayas and Mindanao via Cebu and Zamboanga. The project is estimated to be completed in 46 months with an estimated cost of P52 billion.
The Visayas-Mindanao interconnection project is meant to interconnect the major grids into a single national grid expected to help improve the overall power-supply security in the country as sharing of reserves will already become possible.
EO 30 states that concerned government agencies shall act upon applications for permits involving Energy Projects of National Significance (EPNS) not exceeding a 30-day period. If no decision is made within the specified processing time frame, the application is deemed approved by the concerned agency.
This effectively reduced the time to process the permits needed for power projects to take off.
In order for an energy project to be considered among the EPNS, power generation and transmission projects must have a capital investment of at least P3.5 billion, significant contribution to the country’s economic development, significant consequential economic impact, significant potential contribution to the country’s balance of payments, significant impact on the environment, complex technical processes and engineering designs, and significant infrastructure requirements.
