CE Casecnan Water and Energy Company Inc. (CEWEC) recently turned over the 165-megawatt combined irrigation and power generation facility to the government.
Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. president Irene Garcia confirmed the turnover. The facility is now 40 percent owned by the agency and 60 percent held by the National Irrigation Administration.
CEWEC, the local unit of CalEnergy International, earlier operated the facility through an independent power producer Build-Operate-Transfer contract with NIA. The contract expired this month.
The Casecnan facility is a “run-of-river” type of plant with very limited impounding area. The water from the reservoir flows into the plant’s powerhouse, down to the Pantabangan lake and into the irrigation channels.
PSALM has lined up the Casecnan power facility as one of the big-ticket power projects for privatization in 2022. NIA will continue its mandate of irrigating farmlands despite the privatization of the power component of the facility.