Raytheon Engineers & Constructors, based in Massachusetts, US, has been awarded contracts totalling more than US$700M from San Roque Power Corporation of the Philippines, a joint venture of Marubeni Corporation of Japan and US-based Sithe Energies. The contracts cover the design and construction of a dam and power plant on the Lower Agno River at San Roque, on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The Marubeni-Sithe Energies joint venture was chosen as the developer of the project by the Philippines National Power Corporation (Napcor).
The earth and rockfill dam, at approximately 1.1km long and 195m high, will be the twelfth largest embankment dam in the world. The 345MW hydro plant will consist of three 115MW generating units.
In addition to the dam and power plant, the Raytheon operating units will be responsible for several other related facilities. These include a concrete chute spillway that will enable excess water to pass the dam, diversion tunnels that will re-route the river around the dam site during the construction phase, a power tunnel penstock that will serve as the conduit for routing water from the reservoir to the power plant, and an electrical substation through which electricity from the power plant will flow into the transmission system of Napcor.
Preliminary work on the project is scheduled to begin by June 1998, and construction is scheduled to be completed in 2003. The multi-purpose project will provide the residents of San Roque and surrounding communities with several benefits.
The Lower Agno River annually overflows its banks and inundates municipalities downstream. The dam will help alleviate this flooding and the reservoir created by the dam will provide irrigation for 87,000ha of land, enabling farmers to plant more than one crop during the year.
Raytheon’s recent hydro experience includes construction of the massive Eastside Reservoir project, which incorporates three interconnected dams in California, US. The company has also designed or constructed more than 1000 power plants.
