SEMIRARA Mining and Power Corp. (SMPC) said on Monday it has spent P5 billion, or nearly a third, of the P8-billion three-year budget allotted until 2019.
Of the amount, P2.8 billion was utilized for the rehabilitation and life-extension program of its two power plants under power-generation subsidiary Sem-Calaca Power Corp. Another P2.2 billion worth of contracts related to the program was also recently awarded to various local and foreign suppliers.
The budget was meant to boost the generation capacity of both plants to 600 megawatts (MW) and extend its economic life by around 20 to 25 years.
“Units 1 and 2 have been running for 33 years and 21 years, respectively. We are upgrading the equipment to get the reliability, performance and efficiency needed to support our continuing commercial requirements,” SMPC President and COO Victor A. Consunji said.
Initial equipment upgrades, such as boiler modifications beginning late-2016, have already increased the generation capacity of Unit 1 from 220 MW to 270 MW.
Meanwhile, Unit 2 is scheduled for boiler refurbishing and electric-precipitator (EP) expansion from December to March 2018. The EP, a filtration device that can remove 99 percent of hazardous air pollutants, uses static electricity to filter soot and ash from exhaust fumes before exiting smokestacks.
By 2019 a new generator and turbine will also be installed to prolong the plants economic viability.
SMPC is the only power producer in the country that owns and mines its own fuel source, allowing it to generate affordable baseload power for the Luzon and Visayas grids.
It also plans to develop a 50-MW mine-mouth power plant in the province of Antique.
A memorandum of understanding for the said project was signed with the Department of Energy (DOE) in August.
The DOE will endorse the power project as an Energy Project of National Significance under Executive Order 30 issued by President Duterte in June.
Moreover, the project will form part of the annually updated Philippine Energy Plan and Power Development Plan.
“We assisted the development of a mine-mouth coal-fired power plant or a power plant using indigenous coal as fuel to address the growth in the baseload demand and required reserves of Semirara Island, along with the other neighboring islands and provinces,” Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi said.
The National Transmission Corp. will build the transmission lines.
In 1977 the DOE issued the Coal Operating Contract 5 to SMPC for a coal mining project in Semirara Island in the municipality of Caluya, Antique.
Cusi said the mine-mouth power project will provide power to Occidental and Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan.