PSALM to issue invitation to bid for 797-MW CBK hydro plants in December

By Alena Mae S. Flores – August 25, 2023, 9:30 pm
from manilastandard.net

STATE-RUN Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. will issue the invitation to bid for the privatization of the 797.92-megawatt Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan hydropower plants in December 2023, a top executive said Friday.

“For CBK, our target of release of ITB is December 2023,” PSALM president Dennis de la Serna said.

“PSALM finalizing our plans for CBK in coordination with our consultant ADB [Asian Development Bank]. Various challenges on security asset, long term viable ASPA [asset sale and purchase agreement], transmission and power charges,” de la Serna said earlier.

“It’s going to be hard. We are hopeful for 2024,” he said.

PSALM initially set the CBK HEPP’s privatization this year after the successful sale of the 165-megawatt Casecnan hydroelectric power plant in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija to Fresh River Lakes Corp., a subsidiary of the Lopez Group’s First Gen Corp.

Fresh River offered the highest bid amounting to $526 million for the CHEPP. PSALM is set to turn over the plant to the Lopez Group at the end of the year.

The CBK hydro facility consists of 22.6-megawatt Caliraya in Lumban, 20.8-MW Botocan in Majayjay and 684.6-MW Kalayaan I and II in Kalayaan, Laguna. J-Power and Sumitomo Corp. of Japan operate the CBK power plants.

PSALM is the agency tasked under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 to manage the assets and liabilities of National Power Corp.