The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said the second round of competitive selection process (CSP) for 180 megawatts (MW) electricity supply from May to July this year was declared as a failure by the Third-Party Bids and Awards Committee (TPBAC) .
Meralco said the TPBAC did not receive any expression of interest (EOI) from a prospective bidder by the April 29 deadline. Based on the CPS rules, a bidding is declared a failure if the TPBAC receives less than two EOIs.
The 180 MW of baseload supply is being sought by Meralco to mitigate the exposure of customers to additional generation costs associated with running Malampaya gas-reliant plants on expensive liquid fuel.
The TPBAC said since there are no outstanding dispute on the first and second rounds of CSP for the contract, Meralco may now enter into direct negotiation for the 180 MW capacity requirement.
“We are now considering all our options, including negotiating with a potential supplier to cover the 180 MW supply requirement from May to July 2022,” said Jose Ronald Valles, Meralco head of regulatory management office, in a statement.
Based on the terms of reference (TOR) of the CSP, participating plants must be from baseload or those that can operate 24×7 and are not sourcing fuel from the Malampaya gas resource.
The TOR also indicated that participating power plants will have no outage allowance and are compelled to pay a fine equivalent to P908 multiplied by each MW hour during a day which shall be used to reduce the generation charge to the consumers, in case they cannot provide supply of power from their nominated power plant or portfolio of plants, spot market, or any other source.
The 180 MW is part of the company’s projected 350 MW additional power requirement to augment available supply during the summer months.
Last February, Meralco entered into a power supply agreement with South Premiere Power Corp. for 170 MW worth of peaking power requirement. – Jed Macapagal
