By Angelica Ballesteros | The Daily Tribune
The renewable energy (RE) arm of power distribution giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) is looking to develop P10-billion worth of solar projects.
In a disclosure to the stock exchange on Tuesday, Meralco said its subsidiary MGEN Renewable Energy Inc. (MGreen) is targeting to develop some 210 megawatts (MW) of new clean power capacity. This forms part of the company’s target of 1,000 MW of RE portfolio over the next five to seven years.
To achieve this, Meralco’s board of directors approved on the same day an equity funding worth P424 million which will be primarily used to invest in various solar projects under development.
According to Meralco PowerGen president and chief executive officer Rogelio Singson, the said projects are in line with the company’s commitment to develop large-scale renewable energy projects that will provide reliable, environment-friendly power at competitive prices without the need for subsidy. Meralco PowerGen is the parent company of MGreen.
“We believe that now is the time to focus on building our green energy capacity and we intend to be a key player in the renewable energy space,” he said.
“We also hope to contribute to the country’s transition towards sustainable energy,” he added.
MGreen earlier announced its plan to invest in 1,000 MW of RE projects over the next five to seven years.
“MGen, through MGreen, will continue working on the realization of our project opportunities and will work in partnership with established developers to maximize our growth potential,” Singson said.
Besides advancing RE prospects, MGen is also focused on utilizing high efficiency, low emission technology for its baseload power plants.
Earlier this month, Meralco president Ray Espinosa said that the group has embarked on transitioning to cleaner sources of power such as renewables from the high-carbon coal at present.
“In our minds, we have set an agenda whereby as we contract stable sources of power, our minds are actually focused on basically moving ourselves from a high carbon to low carbon footprint and hopefully to a zero-carbon electricity, which is tapping renewables,” he has said.