San Buenaventura Power Ltd. Co. started testing and commissioning its 455-megawatt coal-fired power plant, in Mauban, Quezon province in preparation for full commercial operation by September.
SBPL is a joint venture of Meralco PowerGen Corp., a unit of Manila Electric Co., with New Growth, B.V., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Electricity Generating Public Company Ltd. of Thailand.
“Power generation will be our game changer. We are looking forward to September this year when Meralco finally re-enters base load power generation and can better assure customers in its strategic franchise area adequate, reliable and affordable power supply, after our 455 MW super-critical San Buenaventura coal-fired plant in Mauban, Quezon comes on stream,” said Meralco PowerGen president Rogelio Singson.
The over-all engineering, procurement and construction work as of end-March is estimated at 99.29 percent, or on track for project completion in September.
“We are firing commissioning energy within April. We expect positive contribution from San Buenaventura by 2020,” said Singson.
SBPL is selling 455 MW of the plant’s capacity to Meralco under a 20-year power supply agreement, which is extendable for another five years.
SBPL tapped Daelim Industrial Co. Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corp. as EPC contractor for the project.
Singson earlier said the project initially encountered technical difficulties because of another power plant of Quezon Power Philippines Ltd.
“It was quite a challenge and we acknowledge it was a very difficult situation,” said Singson.
The company held ground breaking ceremonies for the project in December 2015, which signaled the start of construction of the power facility.
“The SBPL plant will be one of the first facilities in the Philippines to utilize the supercritical boiler technology leading to higher efficiency and significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in comparison to traditional boiler technology,” said Egco president Chanin Chaonirattisai earlier.