SN Aboitiz Power Corp., a unit of Aboitiz Power Corp., expects a 20-percent increase in revenues this year amid stronger water input.
“For us, 2017 is a very strong year because the front half of the year, we had a lot of inflow. We had very good hydrology so we were able to generate much, much more in the front half of the year than we normally can. In first two quarters of the year, very strong. And in fact I think Magat has set a record in terms of total kilowatt hours produced,” SNAP president and chief executive officer Joseph Yu said.
He said the company’s hydro power projects experienced “a lot of inflow so we were able to keep the dams at very high level that allowed us to ride through the dry season with a lot of power.”
“All of us are praying to have a strong inflow in 2018,” Yu said, without disclosing any figure.
He said SN Aboitiz’s hydro plants operated with a high reliability factor, or above 98 percent, and below half-a-percent of outage rate.
“We take asset management planning very seriously,” Yu said.
SN Aboitiz has started operations of the 8.5-megawatt Maris Main Canal 1 hydro power plant, the first constructed by the SNAP Group since acquiring the 380-MW Magat hydro in 2007 through privatization.
It is composed of two units of Kaplan pit-type turbines with a capacity of 4.25 MW each. Unit 1 was commissioned on October 24 while Unit 2 started operating on November 6.
“Maris hydro is very special not only because it is the first power plant we built from the ground up. This project was proposed by our Magat operations and maintenance team, and then developed and implemented by our business development group,” said Yu said earlier.
Construction of the $47 million run-of-river hydro plant in Barangay Ambatali in Ramon, Isabela, took about two years.
The plant utilizes the water coming from Magat hydro that goes into the Maris re-regulating dam located downstream of Magat, before flowing into the Maris Main (South) Irrigation Canal.
SN Aboitiz owns and operates the Magat hydro that has maximum output of 380 MW on the border of Isabela and Ifugao.
SN Aboitiz also owns and operates the 105-MW Ambuklao hydro and the 140-MW Binga hydro in the province of Benguet.