THE Tokyo Electric Power Corporation (Tepco) of Japan is willing to assist the Philippines if it will push through with its plan to put up nuclear power plants in the country.

Tepco general manager Satoru Harada for machinery department 1 for power projects, made the offer after the government announced that it would revive plans to build nuclear plants in the country.

“Should it happen in the Philippines, we can assist,” Harada told reporters.

But he said it should not be an agreement with a private company but a government-to-government deal.

Citing the case of Japan, Harada said building a new power plant would take more than 15 years.

Tepco owns 17 nuclear reactors in Japan, 10 of which are located in Fukushima Prefecture and seven in Niigata Kashiwazaki, Kariwa, with a combined capacity of 17,308 megawatts (MW).

Tepco is the partner of Marubeni Corporation, the consortium that won the bidding for Mirant power assets in the Philippines which include the 700-MW Pagbilao coal fired power plant in Quezon, the 1,000-MW Sual coal facility in Pangasinan and the 1,200-MW Ilijan natural gas facility in Batangas.

The consortium took over 100 percent of Pagbilao and Sual coal plants and 20 percent of the Ilijan facility when it bought Mirant’s Philippine assets for US$3.424 billion.

The company infused US$724 million as shareholder’s equity and loans while Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC) raised the remaining US$2.7 billion.

Nuclear power is considered as base load energy and it accounts for approximately 40 percent of Tepco’s total electricity output.

Malacañang earlier announced that it is considering the use of nuclear energy in the country as an alternative source of power.