Alcantara Group to revive diesel plant

MANILA, Philippines - The Alcantara Group said it is preparing to restart the 98-megawatt Iligan Diesel power plant in Mindanao for its possible full operations by September 2013.           

However, the group conceded that this would be tough given the 30-year old plant’s poor maintenance records and scarcity of available parts.           

The Iligan power plant is among the facilities eyed by the Department of Energy to provide additional power in Mindanao, which is currently experiencing rotating outages because of the power supply crunch.

“It is a tough order, but we will try our best to deliver the most we can in the shortest possible time,” said Ruben Ramilo, tasked by Alcantara Group unit Mapalad Power Corp. (MPC) to supervise the rehabilitation and operation of the power plant.            

At the same time Alsons Power vice president for operations Edgar Sevilles said Mapalad started rehabilitation work last month after receiving the go-signal from the Commission on Audit (COA) to take over the plant.           

He said the plant is expected to begin operating on a ramp-up basis within this month with the objective of reaching its full capacity by September.            

The Alcantara Group is spending P1.2 billion for the acquisition and rehabilitation of the plant.           

Sevilles said the plant’s diesel generating units need overhaul but the company has been having a difficult time determining which units need major or minor repairs due to the lack of proper maintenance records.           

“We’ll have to make assumptions and random inspections in order to map out plans of action for each unit and for all other auxiliary equipment and facility,” he said.            

Aside from poor maintenance records, the plant also needs replacement parts and equipment, some of which are no longer available in the market.

“Some of these items are already obsolete and are no longer available in the market thus need to be completely replaced with updated models, some would take around three to four months for the suppliers to deliver these items, so we’ll have to consider this lead time in projecting our load ramp-up schedule. But as we have said, we will try our best to stay on track with our target schedules despite these difficulties,” he said.           

Mapalad has already signed off almost 90 percent of its full capacity via power sales agreements (PSAs) with distribution utilities.           

The Iligan plant was originally developed and operated by the Alcantara Group thru its subsidiary, Northern Mindanao Power Corp. (NMPC), under two energy conversion agreements with the National Power Corp. (NPC) through the build, operate and transfer (BOT) scheme.           

The agreements expired and eventually, the Iligan City government decided to invite interested parties to bid for the ownership and operation of the power plants in 2011.          

The Alcantara Group subsequently won the contract through a negotiated bid, which was subjected to a “Swiss Challenge.”