DOE eyes 14 transmission projects for NGCP till 2040
By Lenie Lectura – June 13, 2019
from Business Mirror
FOURTEEN transmission projects are lined up for completion by the grid operator between this year until 2040.
“For 2019 and onward, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines [NGCP] focuses on upgrading and expanding transmission backbones to support entry of new generating facilities and allow market competition,” the Department of Energy (DOE) said in its 2018 Power Supply and Demand report.Based on the report, the Mindanao 230-kilovolt (kV) backbone project is expected to be completed this year.
This project will enable transmission facilities traversing from the northern to the southern corridors of Mindanao to accommodate the entry of new power plants and allow existing power plants to be dispatched at their respective maximum capacities and transmitted throughout Mindanao. This will solve line congestion and load curtailment.
Two projects are expected to be finished in December next year: the Cebu-Negros-Panay 230-kV backbone and the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP), the first project to be declared an Energy Project with National Significance (EPNS).
The MVIP is considered the biggest power infrastructure project in the history of the country. The P52-billion project aims to connect the Mindanao grid to the Visayas grid, and will ultimately lead to a single, unified national grid by the time of its completion in 2020.
In 2021, the Metro Manila 500-kV backbone is expected to be completed in September.
By December 2024, the Batangas-Mindoro Interconnection, the Palawan-Mindoro Interconnection and the Bolo to Laoag 500-kV backbone projects are expected to be finished.
In January 2025, the Eastern Mindanao 230-kV transmission backbone is targeted for completion. By June of the same year, the Western Luzon 500-kV backbone is also expected to be completed.
The Luzon-Visayas HVDC Bipolar Operation project is envisioned to be completed by December 2030.
In December 2035, the Nagsaag to Kabugao 500-kV backbone and the Cebu-Bohol-Leyte 230-kV backbone projects could be finished.
Two more projects are targeted for completion in December 2040. These are the Metro Cebu 230-kV backbone loop and the Western Mindanao 230-kV transmission backbone projects.
These 14 projects are included in the Transmission Development Plan (TDP) 2019-2040.
As the system operator, the NGCP also oversees grid security and reliability, power quality, and power dispatching and scheduling. As such, the NGCP designed the TDP to help identify and mitigate causes of power interruptions and transmission-related outages.
In 2018, six main grid projects were completed and energized by NGCP. Of these, 74 circuit-kilometer are located in Luzon, 134.7 ckt-km in Visayas and 173 ckt-km in Mindanao.
There were also 141 MVA substation capacities added in Mindanao. These projects were intended to facilitate entry of generation capacities, load growth and system reliability.
Since 2009 until 2018, the NGCP has completed numerous projects nationwide in the total amount of P151 billion. The NGCP has built 5,626 transmission structures and 2,472 circuit-kilometers of transmission lines, and installed 10,978 megavolt-amperes of substation capacity.
By the end-2019, the NGCP will complete up to P188 billion worth of projects, including a substantial portion of the MVIP.
