Manila Electric Co. said Wednesday three of nine bidders were disqualified from participating in the competitive selection process for the supply of 1,800 megawatts over a 20-year period.
Meralco said the third-party bids and awards committee of the CSP decided to move the opening of the bids to Feb. 19 instead of Feb. 10 to give bidders more time for the resolution of protests or motion for reconsideration.
“After careful scrutiny, the TPBACfor Meralco's 1,800-MW competitive selection process completed yesterday the pre-qualification evaluation of documents submitted by bidders last January 27,” Meralco head of utility economics and TPBAC secretariat head Lawrence Fernandez said.
“Individual results were subsequently released to the authorized representatives of the bidders. As the CSP is still ongoing, details of the bidders that were pre-qualified could not be divulged; however, the TPBAC reported the results of the evaluation to the Department of Energy,” he said.
Fernandez said that in the interest of due process and on account of the protest mechanism of the bidding rules, the TPBAC rescheduled the opening of bid prices of pre-qualified bidders to Feb. 19, or until resolution by the TPBAC of any request for reconsideration or by the Meralco board of directors of any protest.
Nine power companies with total capacity of 5,850 MW participated in the Meralco CSP deadline submission on Jan. 27. The bids were supposed to be opened on Feb. 10.
Sources said of the nine companies, new player Kingstone Energy, Santa Cruz Solar Energy Inc. of the Ayala Group and Solar Philippines were disqualified.
Sources said Santa Cruz Solar and Solar Philippines offered hybrid renewable energy projects, which are proven technologies worldwide and thus the parties are expected to file an appeal to TPBAC.
It is not clear why Kingstone Energy was disqualified although sources said the company has Chinese financial backers.
Prequalified bidders included San Miguel Corp.’s three companies with total offer of 2,400 MW, including Excellent Energy Resources Inc. which is building an LNG facility in Batangas, Mariveles Power Generation Corp. and Masinloc Power Partners Ltd.
Other prequalified bidders are St. Raphael Power Generation Inc. of the Consunji Group, Atimonan One Energy Inc. of Meralco PowerGen Corp. and GNPower Dinginin Ltd. controlled by Aboitiz Power Corp.
“I believe the process was quite transparent and compliant with the existing CSP rules. There is also governance and guidance from key government agencies like DOE and ERC. The movements in the schedules may have been unavoidable due to the number of participants, and is an area for improvement for future CSPs to manage expectations of all participants and stakeholders,” Aboitiz Power Corp. president Emmanuel Rubio said.
