Philippines: ERC okays Avion power plant's COC

Philippines: ERC okays Avion power plant's COC

The 97-megawatt Avion aero-derivative power facility of the Lopez Group can
now advance to full commercial operation with the grant of its certificate
of compliance (COC) by the industry regulator.

The CoC serves as a license for power facilities that they have already
passed all tests and commissioning processes for their plant to be on stream
commercially.

The 97MW Avion plant, which is under corporate vehicle Prime Meridian
PowerGen Corporation, is one of the newest capacity additions augmenting
supply for the Luzon grid.

Its parent firm First Gen Corporation stated in a disclosure to the
Philippine Stock Exchange that it received Avion power plant's COC on
September 8 (Thursday), following approval by the Energy Regulatory
Commission.

It added that the certificate will eventually change the status of the power
project "to a commercially-operated facility' upon completion of its
registration with the operator of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.

Following that, First Gen President Francis Giles B. Puno noted that their
registration with the Philippine Electricity Market Corporation (PEMC) "will
allow them to bid Avion's capacity" in the spot market.

He explained that "the flexibility of the Avion plant will be able to supply
immediate power needs to the market especially during the peak hours and
when other plants go on scheduled outages."

The entry of the Avion plant was viewed coming at opportune timeline because
it has been plugging capacity gaps at supply deficiency periods especially
when there are forced outages in power plants.

This is the first of series of greenfield power projects that the Lopez
group will be bringing on commercially starting this year. Its 414MW San
Gabriel plant will also be on-line this year, to be followed by its planned
414MW capacity addition via its expansion Sta Maria gas-fired power project.

Its new gas-fired power developments will eventually be integrated with its
planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, which is also seen as option
with the anticipated gas production decline at the Malampaya field.

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Ref: http://www.mb.com.ph/erc-okays-avion-power-plants-coc/

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com