Meralco taps Singson to lead generation unit

From heading the company that operates the Light Rail Transit Line 1 (LRT-1), former public works secretary Rogelio Singson will soon become part of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to lead its power generating subsidiary.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Meralco said its board has approved Singson’s appointment as senior vice president and president and chief executive officer of Meralco Powergen Corp. (MGen) starting Oct. 1.

In a text message, Meralco senior vice president Alfredo Panlilio said Singson would effectively replace Aaron Domingo, Meralco’s previous senior vice president for power generation and MGen’s general manager who left the company late last year.

“Mr. Singson effectively heads MGen like Aaron did before,” he said.

Singson has been president and chief executive officer of Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC), which operates LRT-1, since November 2016.

LRMC, composed of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp. of Ayala Corp. and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) Pte Ltd, took over the operations of LRT-1 in September last year.

Under its contract, LRMC will operate, maintain, as well as extend the LRT-1 from the current endpoint of Baclaran to Cavite.

Prior to being appointed public works secretary during the term of former president Benigno Aquino III, Singson served as president of Maynilad Water Services Inc., a unit of infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC).

In another development, Meralco has filed an application with the Energy Regu- latory Commission (ERC) to put up a new New Teresa-Tagbac 115-kilovolt (kv) line to meet the additional power requirement of Solid Cement Corp. for its new cement plant in Rizal.

The power distributor said it was asked by Solid Cement for the expansion of its existing facilities, which can only accommodate 83 megawatt ampere (mva) power transformer.

The cement manufacturer is building a new cement plant which will require an additional load of 36.9 MVA by January 2019, since this will raise the loading of the New Teresa Bank No. 1 to 107 percent from the current 60 percent.

The construction of the New TeresaTagbac 115kV line will require an investment of P138.37 million, which will be shouldered by Solid under the cash advance option.

Meralco said the project would take 12 months to build, barring any unforeseen circumstances such as right of way issues, and is targeted for commissioning in January 2019.