By Naomi Tiburcio
The National Power Corporation (Napocor) and National Transmission Corp. (Transco) have announced that 30,000 unserved households are set to receive power by year-end.
The two government power agencies said 45.31 megawatts of power capacity, 71.3 circuit kilometers (km) of transmission lines, and 45.0 MVA substation facilities will be built to provide energy for these households, while eleven small power utilities group (SPUG) plants will be put up to provide 24/7 electricity to these areas.
In Napocor’s report to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, 473,845 households remain unserved or do not have electricity while 1,080,242 households were provided electricity in 2020.
Despite work interruptions caused by the pandemic, Napocor exceeded its 2020 target to provide electricity to unserved areas by 8,587 households for increased operations and by 2,433 households for new areas.
Meanwhile, Transco aims to complete its power development plan (PDP) for the interconnection of unserved and underserved island municipalities this year. It is expected to come up with the studies and plans that will provide the general framework for the interconnection by the end of the year.
Napocor is a government-owned and -controlled corporation whose mandate is to energize far-flung and off-grid areas and islands in the country, while TransCo is the government agency that operates and manage the power transmission system linking power plants to electricity distribution utilities in the Philippines.
