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Friday, March 29, 2024

Cusi asks ERC to act on Mauban coal plant papers

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Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi asked the Energy Regulatory Commission to act on the pending water rights issue of the 455-megawatt San Buenaventura power plant in Mauban, Quezon which delayed its commercial operations.

“I wrote ERC and I manifested to ERC the importance of it being online because that supply is necessary to augment the present supply of the country,” Cusi said.

The San Buenaventura power plant, a new power supplier of Manila Electric Co., was supposed to come online on Sept. 15 but it was unable to deliver power commercially because of regulatory issues.

San Buenaventura Power Ltd. is a partnership between Meralco PowerGen Corp., the power generation arm of Meralco, which owns a 51-percent stake and New Growth BV, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Electricity Generating Public Company Limited of Thailand, which owns the remaining 49 percent.

The power facility is the first coal plant in the Philippines to utilize the state-of-the-art supercritical technology that has been proven to increase operational efficiencies and significantly reduce emissions.

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“I stressed the importance. I just emphasized the importance of that supply. It has to be acted upon,” Cusi said.

Meralco PowerGen president and chief executive Rogelio Singson said his company was still waiting for the ERC to resolve the water rights issue.

“I am aware of that. [We are] still waiting for the government to act on this new 455-MW supercritical [project]. We have been ready to go commercial operations since Sept. 16. So we are not able to realize our target deadline of Sept. 16 because of this,” Singson said.

Meralco president and chief executive Ray Espinosa said San Buenaventura was not issued the provisional authority to operate.

“We were targeting San Buenaventura to go online [with] commercial operation date on Sept. 15 but the ERC has not yet issued…the provisional authority to operate and the COC [certificate of commerciality]. Without those, San Buenaventura cannot go online and supply commercial power,” Espinosa said.

He said the ERC wanted to clarify about the water rights of the San Buenaventura plant. “The water rights have been issued in favor of Meralco by the National Water Regulatory Board and once it is in the hands of a qualified Filipino, it can be used by anyone already,” Espinosa said.

He said the power plant had passed all the technical tests and was ready to go online.

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