Transco president Alan T. Ortiz said the projects will allow the company to accommodate the additional power demand in the said region.
"Based on the forecast of the National Power Corp. (Napocor), there was a 14 percent growth in electricity demand in the Visayas since the beginning of the year. This means that we will need more power in the Visayas. With this, Transco should be able to put up transmission lines to deliver this power," Ortiz said.
He said there are already commitments from various power-generating firms to fill up the increase in the power demand in the region.
"PNOC-Energy Development Corp. is working out a way to increase its capacity by 60 megawatt (MW) in Negros and additional 200 MW in Tongonan in Leyte," he said.
Ortiz said two other power firms, Mirant Philippines Corp. and Korean Power Electric Co. have also committed to put up new power plants with capacities of 10 MW and 100 MW, respectively.
Among Transco’s transmission interconnection projects which have been lined up for construction in the next two years are: Negros-Panay Interconnection with a $48 million budget; Leyte-Cebu ($68.5 million); Cebu-Mactan ($40 million) and Cebu-Negros ($36 million).
"We still have excess capacity in the region but it is narrowing down. We are doing our best to prevent a looming power crisis in Cebu," he said. "We hope to complete all of these projects next year. It is a very ambitious target but we should do it," he added.
For Panay Islands alone, there is a foreseen annual average power growth rate of seven percent from 178 MW in 2002 to 220 MW in 2005.
However, total dependable capacity in Panay currently stands at 138 MW with only an additional 60 MW transfer capacity from Negros.