The National Transmission Corp (Transco) is eyeing the support of the Department of Energy in securing the World Bank to fund the proposed Visayas and Mindanao interconnection project.
In a report by the Manila Times, Transco president Melvin Matibag said that he wrote a letter to DOE secretary Alfonso Cusi asking their agency to pitch the said project to the WB.
He added that the Transco could seal a 30-year loan with almost zero interest under the WB’s renewable energy development program.
The Transco president said that the World Bank is interested to fund the VisMin project that is also being pushed by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).
NGCP was granted a provisional authority on the project by the ERC. However, this was questioned by the Transco on the grounds that customers will have to shoulder the cost of the project.
Transco said that they need P110 billion to construct the transmission lines that will connect the Visayas and Mindanao grids.
The project, Matibag added, could be finished by 2020.