San Miguel Corp. is set to reintegrate the 1,200-megawatt Ilijan natural gas plant in Ilijan, Batangas to the national grid on June 2 this year, bringing much-needed additional capacity to the grid, sources said.
Department of Energy officials are set to visit the facility on Monday for the reopening, which was initially targeted on May 26.
SMC president Ramon Ang confirmed the reopening of the plant, which is expected to help provide stability in the power supply amid the projected high demand in the dry months and in the coming years.
SMC through power arm SMC Global Power Holdings Corp. in April took delivery of the country’s first-ever liquefied natural gas cargo that would fuel the Ilijan power plant.
Ang expressed confidence on meeting the target date following the significant progress made in the construction of the country’s first LNG import terminal by Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific International Holdings.
“With the reintegration of the Ilijan power plant into the power grid system, the country will be better assured of energy supply security these coming summer months and beyond. Hopefully, with all available power facilities operating–with no plants breaking down or going on unscheduled shutdown–we will have more than enough capacity for the rest of the year, and consumers will not have to experience brownouts or supply rotations,” said Ang.
The Ilijan plant has been on extended outage since June 2022 after its gas sale and purchase agreement with the Malampaya consortium expired.
Located in Batangas Bay, the new AG&P LNG terminal is flanked by the 1,200-MW Ilijan plant and the new 1,313-MW Batangas Combined Cycle Gas Plant also owned by SMGP.
The DOE expressed hope the reopening of the Ilijan plant would end the yellow alert status in the Luzon grid this year.
