NGCP investing ₱132 B for interconnection projects

Private concessionaire firm National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is funneling massive investments of ₱132.1 billion to complete the link-up of the Visayas and Mindanao grids; as well as to interconnect various power transmission networks in the Visayas.

Of the programmed investments, the biggest is the ongoing ₱51.7-billion Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) which is due for completion December next year and will concretize the country’s long held dream of having a “one grid.”

As emphasized by the Sy-led firm, “the only way to forward this vision of a fully interconnected and integrated transmission system is to keep investing in the transmission grid,” with it noting that the link-up of the grids must be instituted and accomplished even to the farthest islands of the Philippines.

On top of that mammoth MVIP venture, NGCP will be injecting additional ₱80.4 billion for various interconnection projects to reinforce wheeling of power capacity in various parts of the Visayas.

For the new projects that the company will be embarking on, the most gigantic will be the ₱47.8billion stages 2 and 3 of the Cebu-Negros-Panay interconnection, which targets to install a 230kilovolt (kV) backbone that will then underpin the transmission of excess capacity from Panay and Negros to the rest of the Visayas grid.

Another big-ticket project being advanced by the company is the 230kV Cebu-Bohol interconnection that commands capital outlay of ₱19.8 billion.

This particular transmission link-up, according to NGCP, “will address overloading issues and enable the sharing of power between the two islands, especially the growing demand in Bohol and will eventually form part of the Leyte-Bohol 230kV loop system.”

The transmission firm is similarly at preconstruction phases for the blueprinted ₱8.5billion Nabas-Caticlan-Boracay transmission line project; as well as the ₱2.4-billion PanayGuimaras transmission line which will be of 138kV system.

And to establish N-1 condition for power transmission in the load centers of Mandaue and Mactan in Cebu, the company is similarly advancing the ₱1.9-billion Cebu-Lapu Lapu transmission line venture. The company said survey and right-of-way clearing activities are currently being undertaken for this project.

N-1 contingency provides redundancy in a power system to ensure power availability even if one part of the network would fail.

Onward, NGCP indicted that the projects taking off from its drawing board will be undertaken in the Luzon grid – not only to reinforce the transmission of power capacity especially from where the power plants are sited on to the load networks of the power utilities; but also to connect some domains previously isolated from the main grid.

These shall include the Batangas-Mindoro interconnection project; Palawan-Mindoro linkup; the Laray-Cordova 230kV transmission line; Batangas-Cavite interconnection project; and the Bataan-Pasay interconnection venture.

Once these projects reach commercial operations, NGCP noted that “this will prepare the entire Philippine grid for the integration to the proposed ASEAN Power Grid,” or that era when the country can already share its power resources with the rest of Southeast Asian neighbors because of interconnected power transmission system.