World’s largest plane lands in Cebu

CEBU CITY—The Lopez-controlled FGP Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of First Gen Corp., has successfully brought to the country on board the world’s largest aircraft a new 150-ton replacement transformer for FGP’s San Lorenzo natural gas-fired power plant in Batangas City.

The transformer was loaded on board the Antonov 225 (AN225) aircraft, which departed on Sunday, from Zagreb, Croatia, and arrived early Tuesday morning at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport.

FGP, in a press statement, said it saw a need to expedite the manufacture and delivery of the replacement transformer to ensure both sufficient power supply and stability of the Luzon grid, especially at this time when other areas of the country are experiencing insufficient and unstable power supply.

It marked the first time that the Antonov 225 landed in the Philippines. Its 150-ton load is the heaviest cargo to be loaded into an airplane in one piece and flown into the Philippines.

Its statement said FGP will install the transformer on the company’s San Lorenzo natural gas-fired power plant, a critical asset to the Luzon electrical grid system. The transformer raises electricity voltage produced by the generator from 16.5 kilovolts (kV) to 240 kV, thus enabling the plant to deliver the electricity generated by the San Lorenzo Unit 60 through the transmission line network of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

FGP tapped the help of an international team to speed up the delivery of the new transformer, which will replace a similar piece of equipment that caught fire a few months ago. The fire rendered Unit 60 of San Lorenzo inoperable and resulted in the loss of half—or approximately 250 megawatts—of San Lorenzo’s 500-MW supply of electricity to the Luzon electrical grid.