Meralco keen on Transco assets

Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power distributor, is still keen on acquiring the sub-transmission assets (STAs) of the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) but indicated the assets will be bought through a staggered payment schedule.

"We do not have that much cash now as everyone knows because of our refund program to our customers. But maybe we can acquire that in a deferred payment basis," said Meralco president Jesus Francisco.

Meralco has earlier expressed interest in buying 21 subtransmission lines and 17 sub-stations worth some P4.1 billion, all of which fall under its franchise areas in Luzon including Metro Manila.

Originally, Meralco earmarked just P1.1 billion to buy the said assets of Transco in Cavite, Batangas, Laguna and Bulacan. Subsequently, it raised its allocation to P4.1 billion after checking out Transco’s substation assets.

Meralco’s interest in acquiring these assets is critical because if acquired, these covers at least 80 percent of the P5.5-billion worth of sub-transmission assets that Transco lined up for sale.

The sale of these assets however, cannot yet be firmed up pending d out pending the release of the guidelines on the sale of the STAs of Transco by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

Part of the ongoing talks between the two camps involves Meralco’s proposal for a so-called package sale wherein Napocor establishes the extent to which the power distributor can buy its assets, and in the process, extend to the company more flexible terms.

Meralco is prioritizing the STAs in Cavite, where currently, it has 34 core customers consumming at least 1,000 kilowatthours or one megawatt. At the same time, it wants to capture 269 potential customers in Rosario, Cavite especially the firms operating at the Cavite Economic Processing Zone Authority (CEPZA).

Meanwhile, the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) opened yesterday its $80-million National Control Center (NCC), a facility which will improve the monitoring and control of power grids nationwide.

The center, which was largely funded by the World Bank, houses a telecom system, an energy management system, and a protection system.

Transco senior vice president and chief operating officer Roque Corpuz said that with these new features at the NCC, the company’s system operations can now effectively monitor power lines and transmission lines for faults and then control or isolate the problem.

"We have completed the first phase of the project which is the Luzon phase. The Visayas phase will be completed by middle of next year. And although, it has not been committed, we might also by December next year, at least monitor the Mindanao grid from the NCC," said Corpuz.

He added that while these functions are already being performed by the systems operations group from the old control system, the new NCC tools are more efficient and accurate in monitoring the plants’ and transmission lines’ performance at any given time and immediately give directions on how to control problems if they occur.

The upgraded estimator software, which measures all control points and estimates what load a particular station has at any given time now allows system operations personnel to analyze load profile in real time.