Meralco injecting 110-B equity into 210-MW solar projects
The power generation arm of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) will be injecting 1424.2 million worth of equity investments in initial 210 megawatts of solar projects that will command total capital outlay of 110.01 billion.
The solar installations will be placed under corporate vehicle MGen Renewable Energy, Inc. (MGreen), a subsidiary of Meralco PowerGen Corporation (MGen), which in turn is the investment unit of Meralco into the power generation segment.
“MGreen has secured equity funding amounting to 1424 million that will be used to invest in various solar projects under development,” the company has stipulated in a statement to the media.
The equity funding had been funneled to MGreen by parent firm Meralco, based on the approval of its board of directors on September 30 this year.
The specified 210-megawatt solar developments will be spread across Luzon, including some that will be traversed by the franchise area of Meralco. There had been no specific sites or information on joint venture arrangements provided by the company as of press time.
On the firm’s targeted 1,000MW investment portfolio in the renewable energy (RE) sector over five years, MGreen will stand as the corporate platform on various ventures on the RE space – not just in solar, but also in wind and run-of-river hydro installations.
MGreen’s foray into renewables, according to MGen President and CEO Rogelio L. Singson is “in line with company’s commitment to develop large-scale renewable energy projects,” which he indicated will not be leaning on any subsidies either from the government or the consumers’ pockets.
Singson opined 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.”
On the sustainability game for the energy sector, the MGen chief executive similarly emphasized that their company will be placing its bet on the contribution of its RE portfolio.
Alongside investment trajectory on RE capacity build-up, the company asserted that it will also continue to invest in conventional baseload capacity but it will be leaning on the more advanced high efficiency, lower emissions (HELE) technologies.
MGen in particular has several baseload capacity projects in the lineup, but this will only be concretized once it wins power supply agreements (PSAs) as tendered through the dictum of the competitive selection process (CSP) policy being set forth by the government.