MGEN bullish on 10,000-MW capacity goal
The top executive of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), PowerGen Corp. (MGEN), is confident that the company’s target of hitting 10,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity will not be derailed by the Middle East turmoil.
“We’ve been cautious, of course,” MGEN president and CEO Emmanuel Rubio told reporters in a recent interview. He was asked about the potential impact of the war on the firm’s expansion of its power generation capacity.
While Rubio said that the further weakening of the local currency could lead to higher costs, he maintained that “all our projects that are in the pipeline are ‘go.’”
As of end-March, the company’s portfolio flaunts a net saleable capacity of 5,069.7 MW from both traditional and renewable sources.
According to Rubio, MGEN targets to increase the attributable capacity to 10,000 MW by 2030.
MGEN, the power generation arm of Meralco, has been a strong growth driver for the power giant, contributing P5.1 billion to first-quarter profit.
MGEN is leading the construction of MTerra Solar, designed to generate up to 3,500 MW of solar power. It is complemented by 4,500 megawatt-hour of battery energy storage systems.
The project straddles the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Bulacan.
In March, MTerra Solar started beefing up the Luzon power supply with an initial 250 MW of capacity.
“So the only issue now is the evacuation to the grid. And we understand NGCP’s (National Grid Corp. of the Philippines) concern because there’s still volatility,” he said.
“Although we have batteries and the batteries have shown good forming capability as we actually increase the demand. But since this is something new and everyone’s learning, we’re working together with NGCP on the phases,” Rubio added.
