BEING the country’s sole transmission service provider, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) laid on highways where reliable and sustainable power flows from generating plants to distribution utilities, industries, businesses and households.
Tasked with operating, maintaining and expanding the power grid, NGCP is dedicated to improving the country’s transmission network.
Better power transmission for the nation
As it strives to become the strongest power grid in Southeast Asia, NGCP has so far invested P151 billion into the government’s aging transmission system.
A total of 5,626 transmission structures, 2,472 circuit-kilometers of transmission lines, 18 new substations, 63 upgraded substations and an additional 15,634 megavolt ampere (MVA) of transformer capacity has been installed in the past 10 years.
The company completed 109 projects which include, among others, the following: the Lumban-Bay 230 kilovolt (kV) Transmission Line Project, which provided maximum dispatch of power plants from South Luzon to the Load Center; the San Esteban–Laoag 230kV Transmission Line Project, which accommodated the renewable energy power plants in Northern Luzon; the Luzon Voltage Improvement Projects, which provided additional megavolt ampere reactive (MVAR) capacity to improve power quality; the Bataan Grid Reinforcement Project, which accommodated a 600-megawatt (MW) Coal Power Plant in Bataan; the Santiago-Tuguegarao 230kV Transmission line project, which ensured a more reliable and better quality of power transmission services for power consumers in Isabela, Cagayan, Kalinga and Apayao; and the Typhoon Nina Rehabilitation Project, which upgraded the wind rating of transmission towers in Bicol region to withstand super typhoon winds of up to 300 kilometers per hour (km/h).
For Visayas, NGCP energized the submarine portion of the Cebu-Negros-Panay 230kV Backbone Stage 1, which provided an additional transfer capacity between Negros and Panay; the Ormoc-Babatngon 138kV Transmission Line, which reinforced power transmission delivery in the Leyte and Samar provinces; the Southern Panay 138kV Backbone, which addressed the load growth in the Panay area; the Calong-Calong-Toledo-Colon-Cebu 138kV Transmission Line, which was constructed to provide N-1 provision to the existing 138kV transmission corridor in Cebu; and the Bohol 138kV Backbone Line, which provided a more stable and reliable transmission network in Bohol.
In Mindanao, the company completed, among others, the Balo-i-Villanueva (Kirahon)-Maramag-Bunawan 230kV Transmission Line, the first 230kV transmission line in the region that connects northern and southern Mindanao; the Aurora-Polanco 138kV Transmission Line, which improved the reliability and power quality in Zamboanga del Norte; the Matanao-Culaman (Malita) 230kV Line, which accommodated a new generating capacity in the Davao Occidental; the General Santos-Tacurong 138kV Transmission Line, which catered the load growth and provided reliable transmission facility in Soccsksargen; the Matanao-General Santos 138kV Line, which provided N-1 to the existing line; and various substations such as Toril Substation and Opol Substation.
More in the pipeline
NGCP’s Transmission Development Plan (TDP) details these priority projects to improve transmission backbones and alternative transmission corridors, and to develop resiliency policies for power transmission facilities.
The company is set to complete more projects in the coming years, among others, which are: 500kV Substation Projects (Taguig and Marilao) and 230kV Substation Projects (Pasay, Navotas, and Antipolo), which intend to cater the load growth of Metro Manila; the Cebu–Bohol 230kV Interconnection Project, which intends to accommodate the load growth and provide reliability of Bohol; the Nabas-Caticlan-Boracay Interconnection Project, which intends to accommodate the load growth and provide reliability of Boracay Island; the Visayas Voltage Improvement Project, which intends to improve the power quality in Visayas; the Mindanao 230kV backbone project, which will upgrade the region’s transmission capacity and secure the reliability of power transmission services throughout the island; the Mindanao Substation Upgrading Project, which intends to increase the substation capacity and improve power quality; and the Kabacan 138kV Substation Project, which will contribute to power reliability in South Western Mindanao area.
An estimated total investment worth P463 billion is programmed for the next ten years.
NGCP is on-track to complete the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP), considered as the largest energy infrastructure in the history of the country.
“We are dedicated to completing the MVIP by December 2020 not only because we committed this, but also because interconnection among the three main grids is long overdue. The interconnection of Visayas and Mindanao was first proposed by government in 1984, but it was private entity NGCP which brought the government’s decades old plan from the feasibility stage to the implementation and completion stage,” stated NGCP.
“Our projects, which will be worth PhP188 billion by end of 2019, and those in the pipeline, are meticulously planned by our engineers and updated year after year with careful consideration for the needs of every single area in the country,” it noted.
NGCP is a Filipino-led, privately owned company in charge of operating, maintaining and developing the country’s power grid led by majority shareholders Henry Sy Jr. and Robert Coyiuto Jr. (PR)