TransCo posts 3% up in ‘06 power delivery

NATIONAL Transmission Corporation (TransCo) announces that it delivered a total of 105,228.4 MegaWatt-months of power to the country's major electricity grids in 2006–a 3.0% increase over the year-ago level of 102,186.8 MW-months. Power delivery measured in MegaWatt-months refers to the sum of TransCo's monthly billing demands for 2006.

TransCo President and CEO Arthur N. Aguilar said the completion of crucial transmission projects in 2006 significantly helped improve power delivery service. Some of these completed projects are the San Roque-San Manuel 230-kV Project in Luzon ; the additional 50 MVA transformer at Wright Substation and the second phase of the Babatngon Substation Expansion for the Leyte-Samar Transmission Project in Visayas; and the Abaga-Marawi 69-kV Line 2 in Mindanao. “We will do all we can to complete our expansion and capacity addition projects nationwide to further improve power delivery to our customers,”  Aguilar said.

TransCo's Corporate Planning Group reported that power transmitted to the Luzon grid reached 78,413.9 MW-months, a modest 2.9% increase from the previous year's level of 76,198.2 MW-months. Delivery to the Visayas and Mindanao grids, on the other hand, went up by 3.1% and 3.2%, respectively. Of the total power wheeled by TransCo nationwide, about 77% came from the National Power Corporation (NPC) and its independent power producers (IPPs). The rest came from IPPs supplying Manila Electric Company (Meralco) and other generating units in Luzon and Visayas.

In the Luzon grid, the demand for power delivery service in the Meralco franchise area, which accounts for 73% of the Luzon delivery, increased by 4.2%. This is due to the increase in power supply coming from the NPC power plants which are augmenting the supply of one of Meralco's embedded IPPs that stopped operations in August last year.

Power delivery service in Luzon outside Meralco's franchise area however was flat, registering a decrease of less than one percent in 2006. In the case of non-utility customers, power delivery service requirements decreased by 3.7%. This was attributed to the lower power demand from most of TransCo's major customers in the cement, mining and chemical industries. Because of supertyphoons that hit the country in the second half of 2006, power delivery to distribution utility customers was almost flat, registering a less than one percent increase in 2006.

Economic zones, notably Subic Enerzone, Baguio Ecozone, and the Cavite Ecozone all posted increases in demand requirements. In the Visayas grid, power delivery climbed 11,599.0 MW-months, up by 3.1% over the year-ago level. Of the total power delivered, 89.0% is attributed to distribution utilities, 10.7% to industries and 0.3% to non-utility customers.   In the Mindanao grid, power delivery rose 3.2% to 15,215.6 MW-months due to the increase in industrial customers' demand.

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