MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine power sector needs to implement long-term measures to include building resilience while achieving sustainable goals to fuel the economy under the ‘new normal’, according to the top official of Meralco Powergen Corp. (MGen).
In a recent forum, MGen president and CEO Jaime Azurin said the pandemic has prompted the need for long-term transformational change under the ‘new normal.’
“The world has come to realize the valuable importance of building resilience and integrating sustainable goals to future-proof and create lasting impact for the greater good,” he said.
Azurin stressed that the health crisis has brought to light existing vulnerabilities and limitations, not only in the power sector but across all sectors.
“We must all work together to include resilience planning for both present and future shocks. Recovery plans must not be limited to short-term measures to ramp up economic activities but also to look into long-term actions that are key to future resilience,” Azurin said.
For its part, MGen is pursuing its goal of carbon neutrality or net zero emissions by 2050.
To help achieve this, Meralco’s power generating unit is targeting to build a total combined capacity of 1,500 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy (RE) in the next seven years.
MGen began its RE journey with the 55-MW BulacanSol, which commenced operations last May.
Global Business Power Corp. (GBP), which was acquired by MGen, started constructing its first RE power plant, the 115- MW solar farm in Baras, Rizal.
Azurin said the Baras solar project is expected to be completed in September next year.
Meanwhile, GBP is negotiating for the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts for its pipelined solar plants in Isabela, Nueva Ecija and Ilocos Norte.
In the next two years, GBP has set a budget of P3 billion this year and is looking to spend another P2-3 billion for next year to develop four solar farms, including the Baras solar project.
The Meralco generating units are also eyeing hydro, wind and solar storage that can compete in mid-merit space.
“All these are in support of the country’s target of 35 percent RE share by 2030, and eventually 50 percent by 2040,” Azurin said.
With the combined capacity of GBP and MGen, the Meralco power generation arm has a gross capacity of 2,446 MW.