By Lenie Lectura – September 22, 2020
from Business Mirror
The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) has appealed for understanding as the timeline of its vital transmission projects has been pushed back because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
NGCP said Tuesday that it is continuously assessing the impact of the global health crisis to transmission projects, particularly to the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP), Western Luzon Backbone project, and San Jose-Quezon 230kiloVolt (kV) Line 3 project.
“NGCP is eager to finish its critical projects as close to the original timelines as possible. We are also fully cognizant of the need to restrict movement and activities to help stem the spread of the virus.
We are constantly trying to balance public health interests by fully equipping our team with complete PPEs and establishing stringent safety protocols in all workplaces, with the economic need to complete these critical activities,” NGCP said.
The P52-billion Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) was supposed to be ready by the end of this year. However, according to the Department of Energy (DOE), the project will be delayed by one year to December 2021.
The MVIP was the first project to be declared an Energy Project with National Significance (EPNS). It aims to connect the Mindanao grid to the Visayas grid, and which will ultimately lead to a single, unified national grid by the time of its completion in 2020.
NGCP said project schedules are continually reassessed as varying degrees of community quarantine remain in effect. “The time lost is not a simple 1 is to 1 conversion. Even today, with the limitations on travel and manpower restricted to 50 percent of the workplace capacity, construction activities have not resumed to 100 percent of their pre-quarantine pace.”
“Work completed in a single ‘pre-Covid-19 month’ is now projected for completion within at least 2 up to 4 ‘quarantine months.’ This means that if a project was set to be completed within 4 months from March (beginning of quarantine measures), the new estimated time of completion would be moved 8 to 16 months from the original completion target. These targets continue to move as we remain bound by health and safety considerations,” the company added.
NGCP said it is ramping up construction activities of all vital transmission projects. At the height of the nationwide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), NGCP said it was constrained to temporarily suspend its construction projects to ensure compliance with health and safety regulations.
Grid management and critical maintenance activities, as well as various operations which were critical to the provision of power, continued despite strict lockdowns. The lifting of the ECQ last May 16, and the easing of cross municipal border restrictions allowed NGCP to gradually resume construction work.
“We started the resumption of critical projects as early as May 26, even though the country was still in MECQ [modified ECQ]. Preparations for this resumption began weeks before that. Compliance with IATF and LGU-specific guidelines needed to be in place before we could ramp up our project activities,” NGCP said.
“Among the most challenging compliances were the RT-PCR Covid testing of our critical project personnel, and securing the Covid test results of our contractors, as well as facilitating the permits to enter of key personnel to and from hotbed areas.”
The staggered relaxation of quarantine regulations, even those related to essential industries and construction, has not yet allowed NGCP to fully “return to work” for its construction projects. Restrictions were eased but not fully removed. Construction works did not resume in full due to health and safety protocols, and new normal standards, including Covid-19 testing of all manpower, access to transport and mobility issues, and government-mandated manpower limitations.
NGCP is a Filipino-led, privately owned company in charge of operating, maintaining, and developing the country’s power grid, led by majority shareholders and Vice Chairman of the Board Henry Sy, Jr. and Co-Vice Chairman Robert Coyiuto Jr.
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