Aboitiz Power starts operations of Davao coal-fired plant next week

MANILA, Philippines - After a three-month delay, the first unit of the 300-megawatt (MW) Davao coal-fired power plant owned by Therma South Inc. (TSI), a subsidiary of Aboitiz Power Corp., will start commercial operations next week, providing the Mindanao grid with the much-needed boost in capacity.

AboitizPower president and COO Antonio Moraza told reporters Thursday TSI has been testing the plant and is eyed for commercial operations “sometime next week.”

The 150-MW Unit 1 was originally scheduled to start commercial operations by the end of June.

The AboitizPower unit has been synchronizing the first unit of the Davao plant with the Mindanao grid since June.

Data from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines showed as of yesterday, the Mindanao grid a system capacity of 1,521 MW with a system peak of 1,426 MW, with power reserve at 95 MW.

During commissioning, Moraza said the Davao plant was affected by the series of rotational brownouts in the Mindanao grid due to the outage of 210-MW coal-fired power plant of Steag State Power Inc. and Mt. Apo geothermal plants.

Fortunately, the power disruption did not damage the Davao plant.

“Steag was down and then Mt. Apo was down. When that was happening during the commissioning, we also came down for a day or two. Now everybody is happy. [Power supply] should be better,” Moraza said.

AboitizPower announced earlier that the Davao plant’s Unit 2 would face a 10-month delay in commercial operations until Feb. 2016 after the Mindanao-wide blackout in April damaged its auxiliary components.

The areas and components affected include the air- preheater as well as the electrostatic precipitator, which is part of the power plant’s pollution control system.

TSI’s 300-MW circulating fluidized-bed (CFB) coal-fired power plant is located on the boundary of Brgy. Binugao, Toril District, Davao City and Brgy. Inawayan, Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur.

The company has signed supply agreements with more than 20 distribution utilities and electric cooperatives in Mindanao.

The power plant is also set for expansion to 645 MW, targeted for completion in  2018.