Private concessionaire firm National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is seeking all-out support from the national and local government agencies for permitting and right-of-way (ROW) acquisitions, so it can speed up the development of the P14.03-billion Batangas-Mindoro Interconnection Project (BMIP) by 2025 amid the ‘almost impossible deadline’ prescribed by the Department of Energy.

“It’s an almost impossible deadline,” the transmission firm reiterated, although it qualified that NGCP “will do its best.”

The transmission firm said “we understand and support the direction of the DOE in these and other critical projects. There is zero room for any delay with the usual chokepoints – right-of-way (ROW) and the issuance of permits from local governments and other government agencies.”

It similarly emphasized that even the approval on the P14.03 billion capital expenditure (capex) for the BMIP had just been based on a provisional authority (PA) rendered by the Energy Regulatory Commission.

According to NGCP, the 2025 mandated completion of the transmission link-up venture will just give the company at least two years to pursue the development of the facility, and bring it to its commercial operations phase.

In the original timeline cast by the transmission firm, the BMIP is supposed to be on commercial stream by 2027, but that had been advanced by two years, as recently sounded off by the energy department.

“The DOE recently announced NGCP’s commitment to complete the BMIP in 2025, a mere two years for a major interconnection project,” the transmission company noted.

NGCP cited that in its application filed with the ERC, “the timeline we indicated is 2027, already tight with respect to a project of this magnitude.”

The transmission firm argued that “in other parts of the world, including developed nations such as the United States, Australia and parts of Europe, transmission lines ordinarily require anywhere between 7 to 10 years to build.”

The linkup of the transmission facilities from Mindoro to Batangas is being pursued by the government so that the future generated capacity of the offshore wind farm facilities – primarily in Mindoro – can be integrated into the main power grid of Luzon.

On permitting requirements for BMIP, NGCP conveyed that it already conveyed its concerns to the DOE, primarily its need for ROW acquisitions and on the processing of layers of permits within the national as well as local government agencies.

“Assuming that the project incurs no delay in permitting and right of way, and assuming no restraining orders are issued against the project by the courts, the timeline imposed by the DOE is, again, still very tight, even with government support,” the company stressed.

Prior to the DOE mandate on fast-tracking the BMIP, NGCP indicated that it had already done pre-construction activities at the project site – including those on topographic survey of the submarine cable and cable terminal station sites, marine and hydrographic survey, and route survey for the 230-kilovolt (kV) and 69kV overhead transmission line portions.

The transmission firm narrated that it was way back 2011 when it had drawn up the roadmap to tie in off-grid Mindoro to the main power grid in Luzon via Batangas, as it has already been projecting then the highly probable spike in energy demand.

Nevertheless, that had not been given prompt attention by previous industry regulators, so the company opted to re-file its project application in 2021, taking into account targets to reinforce power transmission services in the country.