ERC okays Avion power plant’s COC
The 97-megawatt Avion aero-derivative power facility of the Lopez Group can now advance to full commercial operation with the grant of its certificate of compliance (COC) by the industry regulator.
The CoC serves as a license for power facilities that they have already passed all tests and commissioning processes for their plant to be on stream commercially.
The 97MW Avion plant, which is under corporate vehicle Prime Meridian PowerGen Corporation, is one of the newest capacity additions augmenting supply for the Luzon grid.
Its parent firm First Gen Corporation stated in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange that it received Avion power plant’s COC on September 8 (Thursday), following approval by the Energy Regulatory Commission.
It added that the certificate will eventually change the status of the power project “to a commercially-operated facility’ upon completion of its registration with the operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.
Following that, First Gen President Francis Giles B. Puno noted that their registration with the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC) “will allow them to bid Avion’s capacity” in the spot market.
He explained that “the flexibility of the Avion plant will be able to supply immediate power needs to the market especially during the peak hours and when other plants go on scheduled outages.”
The entry of the Avion plant was viewed coming at opportune timeline because it has been plugging capacity gaps at supply deficiency periods especially when there are forced outages in power plants.
This is the first of series of greenfield power projects that the Lopez group will be bringing on commercially starting this year. Its 414MW San Gabriel plant will also be on-line this year, to be followed by its planned 414MW capacity addition via its expansion Sta Maria gas-fired power project.
Its new gas-fired power developments will eventually be integrated with its planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, which is also seen as option with the anticipated gas production decline at the Malampaya field.