Napocor plans to boost power capacity
BY BERNADETTE D. NICOLAS – APRIL 19, 2022
from Business Mirror
State-run National Power Corp. (Napocor) is aiming to further expand power capacity additions and transmission lines in off-grid areas in the country by the end of Duterte’s term.
Napocor Officer-In-Charge Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Melchor Ridulme told Finance Secretary and Napocor Board Chairman Carlos G. Dominguez III that they are targeting to increase the number of Small Power Utilities Group (SPUG) plants to 296 to cover 240 missionary or off-grid areas by June this year. Ridulme said Napocor currently operates 285 SPUG plants in 229 missionary areas in the country.
“The Napocor plans to expand capacity additions in missionary areas to 106.58 megawatts (MW) and its transmission lines to 1,125.46 circuit kilometers, along with increasing substation capacity to 225 megawatts by June 2022,” Ridulme said in his report.
In the last five years under the Duterte administration, the agency ramped up its power capacity additions by more than six-fold to 88.53 MW as of December 2021 from 13.66 megawatts in 2016, Ridulme said.
Apart from its, it has also added 321.5 circuit kilometers of transmission lines in missionary areas, bringing the total existing transmission lines as of December 2021 to 1,097.6 circuit kilometers.
From 41 SPUG plants operating 24 hours in 2016, the Napocor now also has 82 SPUG plants operating round the clock. It also increased the transformer capacity of its substations serving missionary areas from 170 megavolt amperes (MVA) in 2016 215 MVA as of December 2021.
Under Republic Act (RA) No. 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), the Napocor is responsible for providing power generation and its associated power delivery systems in areas that are not connected to the transmission system. Missionary electrification projects are funded from the revenues from sales in the missionary areas and from the universal charge to be collected from all electricity end-users.
Napocor also expanded its reforestation in watershed open areas to 4,419 hectares as of December last year from only 1,881 hectares in 2016 . The agency is active in reforestoration of watershed open areas to support sustainable hydro and geothermal plant operations in the main grids.
Meanwhile, the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) said it will shift back to doing on-site inspections of the facilities of the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) after it resorted to mostly “remote” or virtual inspections because of the mobility restrictions during the pandemic.
Transco President-CEO Jainal Abidin Bahjin II reported to Dominguez that it has so far conducted 85 asset inspections and four project inspections on NGCP, and completed the assessment report of the Technical, Regulatory, Financial, and Legal compliance Assessment Team on NGCP’s compliance with the concession deal last year.
The EPIRA mandated the privatization of Transco through an outright sale or management concession agreement.
