THE Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has revised its terms of reference (TOR) for another round of competitive bidding for the supply of 1,200 megawatts (MW) of power, the Department of Energy (DoE) said on Thursday.
In an interview, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi told reporters that the power giant had secured approval to publish the latest TOR for the procurement of such capacity to meet electricity requirements within its franchise area.
“[T]here was [a] meeting of minds already, so naayos na ‘yon (this issue has been resolved)” Cusi said, adding that what needed to be fixed next are the details. “I think it will be published. They asked for authority to publish and we’ve given it.”
The revised TOR comes after Meralco conducted in September a competitive selection process (CSP) for supply electricity from a greenfield power plant or energy facility to be constructed.
The process, however, was declared a failure after Atimonan One Energy Inc., a subsidiary of Meralco PowerGen Corp., the power generation arm of Meralco, emerged as the sole bidder.
The Energy department asked the power distributor to tweak provisions in the public bidding of the greenfield capacity to encourage more participants.
It also proposed to Meralco to allow entities with older power plants to also participate.
This led to the firm releasing in Decembrr a new invitation to bid, this time with certain changes to its CSP guidelines. The full contract capacity should be operational by September 2024. The contract period covers 20 years.
But recently, the power distributor was prompted to amend the terms.
“This just shows that we are really looking into every detail. I think ayos naman na (there are no more problems),” the Energy chief said.
Changes to the TOR include sourcing the electricity required from several power plants, instead of just one.
Meralco is also bracing for the summer season, which the official acknowledged.
“In fairness to Meralco, they have been preparing for [it] and they have contracted plants to source their power this summer,” Cusi said.
