Marubeni completes transmission system
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Japanese-owned Marubeni Corp. has completed the construction of the multimillion transmission line that will improve the delivery of electricity to the Luzon grid from the San Roque hydroelectric plant in Pangasinan.
Alan T. Ortiz, Transco president, said the P220-million transmission line extending about eight kilometers will be switched on by mid-July.
The 230-kilovolt line will replace the temporary line earlier installed by Transco and deliver power to the Luzon grid from the San Roque plant, which is capable of generating 345-megawatt of power.
“This project will maximize the power that would be delivered from San Roque to other parts of Luzon. This may even help the power facility in using its whole capacity,” Ortiz said.
The San Roque plant is a peaking facility, which supplies power to the Luzon grid in case of massive power interruption. It operates about eight hours a day and supplies about 80 MW of power to the National Power Corp.
The plant is constructed through a long-term build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme. The San Roque Power Corp. (SRPC), the plant’s operator, has the option to renegotiate the contract after every four years.
Electricity generated by the dam will be primarily used to power industrial activity and the burgeoning mining industry in northern Luzon.
SRPC is 92.5-percent owned by Marubeni, which bought the 51-percent stake from US-based energy company, Sithe Energies Inc., and the remaining 7.5 percent by Kansai Electric.
The project cost is estimated at $1.19 billion. In October 1998, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation approved a $302-million loan to the private-sector developers and lent an additional $400 million to the Napocor.--Niel V. Mugas
posted by philpower @ 11:17 AM,
