A TOP official of Australia-listed power firm Energy World Corp. (EWC) said the first unit of its 400-megawatt (MW) power facility in Pagbilao, Quezon, could be ready in three months.
“We’re working on it. We’re trying to have it ready by the middle of the year. Construction is now ongoing,” EWC Chairman Stewart Elliott said.
The company has been trying to have the first 200-MW unit ready for generating power into the Luzon grid by summer of this year and the second 200-MW unit to come online shortly thereafter.
“We do not have any contractual obligation. We were asked by the DOE [Department of Energy] if we could accelerate it. We are just trying to be helpful, and yet we get criticized. We want to get it ready as early as possible, but it seems it’s not early enough,” said Elliottt, when asked of the delay in the project construction.
Earlier, Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla said EWC had committed the first 200-MW unit to run before 2014 ends. However, the company had informed the agency that it has moved this to June 2015.
EWC also has plans to put up an additional 250-MW steam turbine facility “to be phased into this development by year-end 2015 or early 2016.” In November last year the turbine and generator of the second 200-MW gas-fired power plant manufactured by Siemens arrived recently on site. The same turbine and generator of the first 200-MW unit arrived on October 23, 2014.
“The first and second 200-MW Siemens turbine and generator arrived and unloaded onto site at Pagbilao,” said EWC in its report to the Australian Securities and Exchange.
In the same report, EWC Executive Director Brian Allen had said the company will “meet the DOE’s request to bring into commercial operation an additional 400 MW of power capacity to the Luzon grid by summer of 2015, thus addressing the foreseen shortfall in Luzon’s power-generating capacity.”
Latest data provided by the agency has it that the Luzon grid is in need of 678 MW of generating capacity to cover for the 647-MW contingency reserve and 31 MW of deficit.