ORMOC City—Energy Development Corp. said it expects to increase revenues by P600 million with the retrofitting and upgrading of three geothermal power assets that will add 50 megawatts of capacity.
EDC president Ricky Tantoco told reporters the company was presently upgrading geothermal facilities such as the Nasulo, Tongonan and Palinpinon geothermal power plants.
“All of those may [contribute] additional P600 million in revenues. We see some of those kilowatt-hours coming in by next year,” Tantoco said.
The company invested P4.3 billion for the Tongonan power plant rehabilitation alone, which is now on its second and final phase. EDC contracted Siemens for the control systems integration and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems for turbine-generator.
EDC is set to embark on the full rehabilitation and retrofitting of the Tongonan units starting the second half of the year and expects all works to be completed by early 2017.
Tantoco said during the annual stockholder’s meeting in May EDC’s assets were at “mid-life” and required capital expenditure investments to maintain reliability levels.
“These investments are expected of prudently operated facilities. Investing in our existing operations is what we call a front domino, something that needs immediate focus and action. Unplanned outages contributed to about P1.5 billion in foregone revenues in 2015, and as we invest in our facilities, these losses should be a thing of the past,” he said.
He said strengthening EDC’s existing assets was a necessary, strategic investment especially in the wake of climate change.
“Both the impact of climate-related hazards and the geography of our project sites have made us vulnerable, particularly to typhoons. We completed several typhoon-proofing projects this year, particularly the installation of new typhoon-resistant cooling towers in both BacMan and Leyte, which have been designed to withstand wind speeds of up to 300 kilometers per hour,” Tantoco said.
Tantoco said EDC also put in place tower spares to restore geothermal assets in case another typhoon Yolanda struck. “We simply don’t want to take any more chances,” he said.
He said EDC employed engineering solutions such as improvements in the metallurgy of turbine rotors and blades, and using advanced stress relief methods in manufacturing to improve plant reliability and site resiliency.
EDC, an affiliate of First Gen Corp., owns 1,441 megawatts of generating capacity, comprising of 1,159 MW of geothermal, 150 MW of wind, 132 MW of hydro and 4 MW of solar energy.