Meralco eyes 100 MW from solar rooftops

MANILA, Philippines - Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) targets to build a portfolio of up to 100 megawatts (MW) from solar rooftops in the next three years.

The company has firmed up plans to put up a separate unit for its solar-powered investments, Meralco president Oscar S. Reyes said.

“We will put up another unit of Meralco called MSpectrum,” he said. “We can look at solar and wind but its focus will initially be solar. Wind, will remain with Meralco PowerGen because it’s big scale.”

Meralco’s power generating projects are under Meralco PowerGen Corp., which is building a portfolio of up to 3,000 MW of new power capacity, mainly from baseload power plants, to address the growing energy demand in the country.

Under MSpectrum, Reyes said the firm now in the development stage will go into solar rooftops within its franchise area.

“We are targeting bigger commercial, industrial customers. We don’t have a firm target yet, but maybe over three years, aspirational is up to 100 MW,” he said.

Meralco announced in July it will be putting up another subsidiary for its renewable energy projects, starting with solar technology. It will also look at wind, run-of-river, other hyropower and gas projects.