Danessa Rivera | The Philippine Star | November 21, 2019
‘Strongest energy infra network in SE Asia’
MANILA, Philippines — The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) is investing P463 billion in the next decade to transform the country’s power grid as the strongest in Southeast Asia.
This includes the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP), considered as the largest energy infrastructure in the history of the Philippines, which is on track for completion by the end of 2020.
“We are dedicated to completing the MVIP by December 2020 not only because we committed this, but also because interconnection among the three main grids is long overdue.
The interconnection of Visayas and Mindanao was first proposed by the government in 1984, but it was NGCP which brought the government’s decades-old plan from the feasibility stage to the implementation and completion stage,” NGCP said.
The company is also completing more projects in the coming years across the three main grids.
In Luzon, it is working on the 500-kilovolt (kV) substation projects (Taguig and Marilao), and 230-kV substation projects (Pasay, Navotas, and Antipolo) which will cater to the load growth of Metro Manila.
NGCP is already building the Cebu – Bohol 230kV interconnection project which intends to accommodate the load growth and provide reliability to Bohol Island; the Nabas-Caticlan-Boracay interconnection project which intends to accommodate the load growth and provide reliability to Boracay Island and the Visayas voltage improvement project which intends to improve the power quality in Visayas.
For Mindanao, the grid operator is also completing three transmission projects which are the Mindanao 230kV backbone project which will upgrade the region’s transmission capacity and secure the reliability of power transmission services throughout the island; the Mindanao substation upgrading project which intends to increase the substation capacity and improve power quality and the Kabacan 138kV substation project which will contribute to power reliability in South Western Mindanao area.
Since it started operating the country’s transmission lines, NGCP has so far invested P151 billion into the government’s aging transmission system.
The investment is equivalent to a total of 5,626 transmission structures, 2,472 circuit-kilometers of transmission lines, 18 new substations, 63 upgraded substations, and an additional 15,634 MVA of transformer capacity.
“Our projects, which will be worth P188 billion by end of 2019, and those in the pipeline, are meticulously planned by our engineers and updated year after year with careful consideration for the needs of every single area in the country,” NGCP said.
NGCP’s Transmission Development Plan (TDP) details these priority projects to improve transmission backbones and alternative transmission corridors and to develop resiliency policies for power transmission facilities.
NGCP is a Filipino-led, privately owned company in charge of operating, maintaining, and developing the country’s power grid, led by majority shareholders Henry Sy, Jr. and Robert Coyiuto, Jr.