The National Transmission Corp. (TransCo) is looking at shouldering the cost to build the Visayas-Mindanao grid connection to avoid passing the burden to consumers.
TransCo president and CEO Melvin Matibag said they are studying if they can pay for the P52-billion cost of the interconnection project.
“I want to look for a way that the cost of the connection should not be passed on to consumers,” Matibag said.
“Apparently, the ballpark figure is around P52 billion so that will be an additional cost to the consumer,” he added.
The state-run firm is considering putting the Visayas-Mindanao interconnection project under its General Appropriations Act.
“I’m having some representation from our Congress, I’m thinking if it can be included into the GAA. But it’s not yet final since I’m just thinking of ways so consumers will no longer bear the cost of that interconnection,” he said.
Otherwise, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) will pay for the project and recover the cost of the transmission projects from consumers, Matibag said.
NGCP has a 25-year concession to operate the country’s transmission network after taking over the management from TransCo in 2008.
NGCP recently completed the hydrographic survey to determine a possible location for the grid interconnection.
Only the Luzon and Visayas grids are interconnected, allowing both islands to source power from each other’s grid during a supply shortfall.
TRANSCO have no right to spend people’s money to whatever they decide to finance. The building of a PHP 52 billion Dipolog to Cebu submarine power transmission line should be justified. The sudden decision to build this power transmission line was a result of the over building of coal fired power plants in Mindanao. The easiest way to mitigate this problem is to stop some of the ongoing and future coal fired power plant and review the future demand in the area and proceed accordingly. Now that the President have signed the Paris Climate Change Agreement (COP21) and the certain ratification by Senate soon the 70% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission by 2030 will become effective. This will result for the more renewable energy installed and the upgrade of our transmission and distribution lines and a major change from our present power system model to meet this target. I will not be surprised when the Climate Change Action Plan is established concludes that we do not need the Dipolog-Cebu submarine power transmission line after all. TRANSCO should not engage in the installation of transmission lines, place the responsibility to NGCP if this is required.
You are right, present government should review and cancel the contract awarded to NGCP regarding the transmission infrastructure, imagine they are provided with sure profit in the operation then they are not spending for the additional facilities, if this Dipolog-Cebu submarine power cable is to be implemented then NGCP must shoulder the cost then recover from the operation. The sad thing igigisa lang tayo sa sariling maktika this is the way the business is going with this oligarch.