AboitizPower to hike capacity

Aboitiz Power Corp. is eyeing to more than double its capacity as it undertakes more renewable energy projects in the next 10 years.

During the company’s annual stockholders meeting, AboitizPower president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Rubio said they plan to grow the capacity from 4,432 megawatts to 9,300 MW by 2029.

He said the 10-year plan is geared towards delivering earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization and a major shift in its energy mix.

Rubio said there would be more investments in renewable energy, “resulting in a shift in our overall capacity mix to almost 1:1 thermal to cleanergy.”

To meet this target, AboitizPower will focus on local and overseas renewable energy opportunities. “We are focusing on participating and playing a significant role in the program of the government on renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and the Green Energy Option program (GEOP) plus our focus growth area overseas,” Rubio said.

RPS mandates power industry players to produce and source a certain percentage of electricity from RE sources such as biomass, waste-to-energy technology, wind energy, solar energy, run-of-river hydroelectric power systems, impounding hydroelectric power systems, ocean energy, and geothermal energy.

The GEOP is a mechanism where electricity end-users are given the option to choose RE as their preferred source of energy.

AboitizPower previously announced plans to pursue its planned international expansion, particularly in Vietnam,

Indonesia, and Myanmar.

“We expect that 13 percent of our portfolio in the next 10 years will be international and all of those will be renewable,” Rubio said.

To date, bulk of AboitizPower’s capacity is dominated by thermal power, while its Cleanergy brand amounts to 1,272 MW or 39 percent of its total net sellable capacity, generated from its portfolio of hydro, geothermal, and solar power plants.

This is to ensure that current baseload power demand of the country and the affordability of electricity prices are met, Rubio said.

“Allow me to point out that AboitizPower is actually a pioneer in renewable energy and we have the largest nameplate capacity in terms of renewable and we are going to continue growing our renewable portfolio,” he said.