Global Business Power assures Visayas of optimum operations

By Lenie Lectura -October 4, 2019
from Business Mirror

GLOBAL Business Power Corp. (GBP) said Thursday its power plants in Panay and Cebu recently completed preventive maintenance in anticipation of increased demand in the region during the last quarter of the year.

“We strive to keep our plants in optimum efficiency to help meet Visayas’s demand for reliable, adequate, and cost-efficient power supply,” said GBP President Jaime T. Azurin.

GBP said power demand in Visayas is expected to grow 5.7 percent due to increased economic activity around the holiday season. Peak demand, which is expected to happen in the last quarter of the year, is projected to average around 2,147 megawatts (MW).

The Department of Energy, meanwhile, expects demand to peak even higher in the region at 2,299 MW in November.

Since January, GBP has been routinely conducting preventive maintenance on all of its Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) plants, with the last plant completing the procedure in August.

“We see an increase in Visayas energy demand not only due to holiday activities, but also due to completed and ongoing infrastructure projects under the government’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ program,” said GBP Vice President for Commercial and Strategy Philip D. Dasalla.

These projects include the recently operational Terminal 2 of the Mactan-Cebu International airport, the ongoing development of the 73-kilometer Metro Cebu Expressway and the Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway, the Jalaur River Dam in Iloilo, and several airport upgrades in the region.

Iloilo and Cebu, where GBP has operations, are two of the region’s fastest-growing hubs. In 2018, Western Visayas and Central Visayas grew their regional domestic product by 6.1 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively.