Firms OK'd to bid for power plant

THE Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (Psalm) has pre-qualified seven firms that are interested to bid for the 165-megawatt (MW) Casecnan Hydroelectric Power Plant (CHEPP).

Psalm President Dennis Edward A. Dela Serna said there were 14 bidders that previously showed interest but only half pursued their bids. The latter are: Fresh Tiver Lakes Corp. of First Gen Corp.; Neptune Hydro Inc. of SN Aboitiz; Global Hydro Power Corp. of Meralco-Global Business Power Corp.; Panasia Energy Inc.; Consortium of EEI Power Corp., Soosan ENS Co. Ltd., Soosan Industries Co. Ltd. and Mapalad Power Corp.; GigaAce 11 Inc. of ACEN Corp.; and, Belgrove Power Corp.

Psalm has moved the deadline of the bid submission to May 16 from April 18, said Dela Serna.

'We are still waiting for some documents from [the] NIA [National Irrigation Administration]. We need its approval for certain documents since we co-own this,' said the Psalm chief.

The CHEPP was turned over to the government in 2021 after the 20-year build-operate-transfer scheme between the CE Casecnan Water and Energy Co. Inc. and the NIA lapsed on December 11, 2021. It was then placed under the co-ownership of Psalm and NIA, which represents the government's interest at 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

The state firm is confident that the sale of the Casecnan plant will be successful, efficient and judicious for Psalm and the winning bidder who will take over its management.

The CHEPP is a 'run-of-river' type of plant with limited impounding area. The water from the reservoir flows into the plant's powerhouse, down to the Pantabangan Lake and into the irrigation channels of the NIA, which will continue its mandate of irrigating farmlands even after the privatization of the CHEPP.

It is located at Sitio Pauan, Barangay Villarica, Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija, about 150 kilometers north of Manila.