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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
THE winning bidder for the
Masinloc power plant is likely to expand the facility’s generating
capacity in the next two years, according to state-run Power Sector
Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (Psalm).
In a briefing, Jose Ibazeta,
Psalm president, said Singapore-based AES Transpower Pte. Ltd.,
which controls winning bidder, Masinloc Power Partners Co. Ltd., has
asked about the potential of expanding the power plant’s
600-megawatt capacity. Masinloc Power on Thursday submitted the
highest bid of $930 million for the coal-fired plant.
“It is a logical option for
them to expand their capacity to be able to continue to compete in
the industry,” said Ibazeta of the agency tasked to sell
government’s power sector assets.
The government has been
encouraging existing power generators to expand their respective
facilities to help augment the Philippines’ supply in light of
forecast of a shortage come 2009.
Of the 31 state-owned plants up
for sale, Psalm has auctioned off nine. This translates to 1,075.4
megawatts in operating capacity, or 24.8 percent of the
4,335.70-megawatt aggregate capacity of all generating plants in
Luzon and Visayas.
Masinloc’s bidding comes on the
heels of another massive power outage that hit parts of Metro Manila
and the island of Luzon. State-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor)
blamed the brownout on power deficiency, as a drop in water levels
prevented it from tapping hydro plants at a time when the delivery
of coal to certain generating plants had been delayed.
Forgone revenues at Meralco
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco),
whose franchise covers the areas affected by last Wednesday’s
outage, said it recorded P1.8 billion in forgone revenues due to the
eight-hour rotating brownout.
“The manual load dropping
affected some 177 circuits of Meralco and we lose potential two
gigawatt-hours worth of sales,” said Daniel Tagaza, Meralco chief
finance officer.
Tagaza said most of the revenue
loss came from sales to residential customers, who bore the brunt of
the power outages.
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