The Energy Department advised Energy World Corp. to seek the help of the Energy Regulatory Commission to address the company’s transmission line issues, an official said Tuesday.
Energy World, a unit of Energy World Corp. of Australia, is putting up a 650-megawatt liquefied natural gas plant and terminal in Pagbilao, Quezon province but has difficulty in getting a connection to the Luzon grid.
“It encountered problems so we advised them why they don’t consider going already to the ERC… It’s not only EWC, it also involves NGCP (National Grid Corp. of the Philippines), TransCo (National Transmission Corp.) and it also has issues with energy players in the area like Pagbilao,” Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella said.
National Grid operates and maintains the country’s transmission network while state-owned TransCo owns the transmission assets.
Energy World’s power plant is situated beside TeaM Energy Philippines’ 735-MW Pagbilao coal-fired power plant.
TeaM Energy, along with Aboitiz Group, is building the Pagbilao 3 expansion which will add 420 MW to the grid by late this year.
Energy World wants to use the existing transmission facility of TeaM Energy to connect to the Luzon grid, a faster option instead of building a new connection facility. Other power generators, however, will also use the line to deliver power from the Pagbilao expansion.
“There are questions that should be answered technically and it can be through a petition filed before the ERC,” Fuentebella said.
Fuentebella said by formalizing its concerns to the ERC, Energy World could speed up the plant’s project development.
Fuentebella said the issues facing Energy World include linking the plant to the transmission line, another 14-kilometer line with right-of-way problems and the possibility of building a submarine cable to ensure delivery of the plant’s capacity.
“The plant is around 45 percent complete…,” Fuentebella said.
Energy World has been seeking government assistance to enable it to connect the plant to the Luzon grid since last year and has not obtained a solution to date
The company in June last year received P1.5 billion funds in for the Pagbilao LNG hub terminal project.
The company’s omnibus loan and security agreement provides an additional P2-billion facility for the project.
Standard Chartered Bank acted as issue manager and book runner, while Land Bank of the Philippines was the lead arranger of the loan.
Energy undersecretary Mylene Capongcol earlier said Energy World’s planned floating storage re-gasification unit, which was supposed to be the first LNG facility in the country, remained to be completed.
Reynaldo Umali, chairman of the House committee on energy, also said a team from the committee visited the company’s project and learned about the interconnection issues hounding the project.
“There’s a problem in the interconnection. But the plant itself can produce anytime. It’s ready for commissioning, except for the interconnection concerns,” Umali said.