Aboitiz Power won't go into nuclear energy

MANILA, Philippines -  Aboitiz Power Corp. (APC) has no plans to engage in nuclear energy development, a top company official said.

“Right now, honestly it’s not in our plans at all,” APC president and CEO Erramon Aboitiz said.

Aboitiz said that they do not find a nuclear energy investment feasible at this point in time, especially if the proposed locations would be in the Visayas and Mindanao.

He said he believes that a nuclear power plant could only be viable if it is built in Luzon area.

“The only possible place that you could do that is Luzon,” he said.

But then again, he countered the idea of a Luzon-based nuclear facility as this will basically compete with gas-fired power plants.

“My point here is that, what do we do with all the gas that we find? What do we do with all the gas, we expect to find, we should be using that for power generation,” he said.

Another downside of a nuclear power facility is the cost.

“Then you know how much nuclear plant costs right now? $6million a megawatt, $6 to $8-million for (MW)? Coal is $2 million per MW,” he said.

Earlier estimates showed that nuclear power cost will be huge and government will need a lead time to look for financing.

Based on initial estimates, the government would need about $1 billion for rehabilitation of BNPP alone while a 620 mw newly-built nuclear plant will cost around $1.24 billion (at a cost of $2 million per MW).

The government had earlier identified more than 10 potential sites for the country’s first nuclear power plant.

These sites are located in Bataan, Batangas, Quezon, Negro Occidental, Palawan, Cagayan, Cavite, Negros Oriental, Zamboanga del Norte and Sarangani.