Therma Power assessing facility: To rehabilitate or to build a new one?
Cebu can expect more additional power in the coming years with the formal turnover of the Naga Power Plant Complex to an AboitizPower subsidiary after years of legal battle focusing on who really won the bidding for the power complex.
“Our team has taken possession of the power plant complex and are now assessing the facility in preparation for maintenance and rehabilitation works. We are also conducting an inventory of the assets on site,” Celso Caballero, Therma Power Visayas Inc. chief operating officer said in a statement on Monday (July 16).
Caballero was Referring to the TVPI team who are assessing the facility after it was legally turned over by the Power Sector Asset and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) on Monday to TVPI.
Caballero said they would also be coordinating with the local government of Naga City to discuss their plans for the facility.
“We would like to thank PSALM for their assistance in guiding us through this turnover process and we look forward to our partnership with the local government of Naga,” he added.
Last May, TVPI received the Certificate of Effectivity (COE) from PSALM initiating their purchase of the 153.1-megawatt (MW) facility which is composed of diesel and coal-fired power plants.
The COE implements the September 28, 2015 decision of the Supreme Court (SC), which upheld the April 30, 2014 award of the facility to TVPI.
AboitizPower Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Distribution Business Group Jose Jaime Aboitiz earlier said they are yet to decide whether to rehabilitate the complex or build a new and different facility in the area altogether.
The decision is yet to be known after the study and assessment of the facility following its turnover yesterday.
Located in Barangay Colon, Naga City, the Naga Power Plant Complex is composed of two thermal power plants — the 52.5-MW Cebu 1 and 56.8-MW Cebu 2 coal-fired units — and one diesel-fired facility that consists of six bunker-C fed generating units.
Disclosure
Prior to PSALM’s turnover of the facility to TVPI, they also entered into an agreement with SPC Power Corp. for the facility’s turnover.
In a disclosure in the Philippine Stock Exchange website, SPC said they have executed a Joint Turn-Over Certificate to PSALM last July 13.
SPC turned-over the facility to PSALM after the latter paid the firm P1.143 billion which is the total bid amount paid by SPC to PSALM for the Naga Power Plant Complex.
To recall, PSALM held the first bidding for the Naga Power Plant Complex in 2013, but the first two rounds were declared failed bids as only SPC, the lone bidder, showed up.
TVPI joined the third round and won with a bid of P1.089 billion, higher than SPC’s bid of only P895 million.
SPC decided to top TVPI’s bid and paid an additional of P54 million, making their total bid at P1.143 billion. But the plant was still eventually awarded to TVPI in 2014.
SPC had earlier contested the award of the Naga Power Plant Complex to TVPI saying it was “grossly disadvantageous to the government.”
The SC earlier declared as null and void SPC’s right to top the bid of TVPI by five percent.