The National Power Corp. (NPC) said its capacity in missionary and off-grid areas as of end-2021 has grown more than five times to 88.53 megawatts (MW) from 2016’s 13.66 MW.
NPC said in the past five years, 321.5 circuit kilometers (km) of transmission lines in missionary areas were added to the 776.03 circuit km in 2016, bringing the total existing transmission lines as of end-2021 to 1,097.6 circuit km.
NPC increased transformer capacity of substations serving missionary areas from 170 megavolt amperes (MVA) in 2016 to 215 MVA as of end-2021.
“NPC plans to expand capacity additions in missionary areas to 106.58 MW and its transmission lines to 1,125.46 circuit km., along with increasing substation capacity to 225 MW by June 2022,” said Melchor Ridulme, NPC officer-in-charge senior vice president and chief operating officer, in a report to Finance Secretary and NPC board chairman Carlos Dominguez III.
Ridulme added at present, there are 285 Small Power Utilities Group (SPUG) plants located in 229 off-grid and missionary areas.
NPC targets to increase the number of SPUG plants to 296 and expand the coverage to 240 missionary areas by June.
From 41 SPUG plants operating 24 hours in 2016, NPC now has 82 SPUG plants operating round- the -clock.
Apart from energy-related achievements, NPC reported its reforestation program of watershed open areas to support sustainable hydro and geothermal plant operations reached 4,419 hectares (ha) as of end-2021, almost a 135 percent growth from 2016’s 1,881 ha.
NPC is mandated to provide power generation and associated power delivery systems via SPUG power plants to islands and communities that are not connected to the main transmission grid. These missionary electrification projects are jointly funded by revenues from power sales and from the universal charge being collected from all power consumers in the country.
NPC is also tasked to oversee watersheds and locate indigenous sources of power.
