Power producers want Napocor privatization to continue

The Philippine Independent Power Producers Association on Tuesday urged government to privatize the remaining assets of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) to attract more investments in the power sector and ensure the country’s long-term energy requirements. Privatization increases the reliability and efficiency of power plants, and in most cases power-generation capacities, PIPPA president Ernesto Pantangco told reporters after the House energy committee hearing Tuesday. "We still think that privatization is still required in order to put in the much needed investments to rehab the power plants and to make them more reliable, so that's why we're still pushing for privatization of all the [Napocor] assets and contracts," Pantangco said. PIPPA members include the country’s biggest power producers like First Gen Corp., Aboitiz Group, and TeaM Energy. "We're waiting for the privatization schedule to be announced by the secretary because there's still the threshold of independent power producer contracts of 2 percent [that] we're closely monitoring, and the IPPs are ready to support the Energy Department's privatization efforts that would be announced," Pantangco said. After the private sector took over Napocor power plants that were sold, many of those plants went back on online with increased power generation, reliability and efficiency, Pantango said. "This has been borne out of the fact that any power plant that private sector has taken over, their capacity increased to a reliable level plus new investments will be put in to further improve the installed capacities," he said. He cited the 600-MW Masinloc coal-fired power plant that was running at around 250 MW before the American firm AES Corp. took over, saying that it is now delivering up to its boilerplate capacity. —LBG/VS, GMANews.TV