Tuesday, October 14, 2008 Mindanao power plant synchronized
LOPEZ-owned Energy Development Corporation (EDC) announced on Monday that the 52 megawatt (MW) Mindanao I Power Plant has been synchronized back into the grid.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), Erudito Recio, investor relation manager and EDC information officer, said the plant completed the 72-hour de-commissioning run at the "contracted guaranteed net output of 48-MW" as of Sunday.
Recio said: "The earlier than programmed re-commissioning of M1 is expected to normalize Napocor's (National Power Corporation] delivery of electricity to its customers in Davao City."
The Mindanao 1 Geothermal Partnership (M1GP) is operating the Mindanao 1 Power Plant under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme. It has ceased to operate last July after its 75 megavolt ampere transformer was damaged.
EDC said they are hoping to get the plant back to the grid by October 15.
The Mindanao Geothermal Production Field (MGPF) facilities are located at the foot of Mt. Apo in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato occupying 112 hectares out of the 701 hectares that the government reserved nationwide for geothermal development back in 1991.
The two power facilities are being operated jointly by EDC and Marubeni Corporation of Japan, one of two foreign groups that financed, designed, and constructed the project under a build-operate and transfer (BOT) arrangement.
By June next year, the Lopez group-through First Gen, which won the bidding for the EDC on November 2006 after offering P58.5 billion for the government's 60 percent stake in PNOC-EDC will have the full operation and ownership of the two power facilities as the 10-year BOT arrangement expired. (MSN/Sunnex)
