Meralco pushes energy transition plan

MACTAN, Cebu, Philippines — Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is pushing for an energy transition plan from high- to low-carbon emissions among power companies to help attain the regional goal of energy sustainability and security.

During the Association of Electricity Supply Industry of East Asia and the Western Pacific (AESIEAP) CEO Conference, Meralco president and chief executive officer Ray Espinosa said “energy transition into renewables is inevitable given the twin perils of global warming and dwindling fossil fuel supplies. “

“We must develop and implement our energy transition plan. We should leverage on technological advancements of renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency that can be adopted in the whole region,” Espinosa said.

As the Philippines’ largest power distributor, Meralco is expected to have a “huge bearing” on the power sector as it currently transitions from high carbon to low carbon, and eventually to zero carbon down the road, Espinosa said.

However, achieving this would be dependent on the conditions in the country, the abundance of RE capacity, and the availability of technology.

“In our minds, we have set an agenda whereby as we contract stable sources of power, our minds are actually focused on basically moving ourselves from a high carbon to low carbon footprint and hopefully to a zero carbon electricity, which is tapping renewables. The issue in the Philippines is the abundance, whether it can actually substitute fully for fossil fuels. That’s a big question,” Espinosa said.

Meralco Powergen Corp. (MGen), the power generating arm of Meralco, is developing 1,000 to 2,000 megawatts (MW) of RE projects in the next five years.

“For MGen, we’re really focusing on developing 1,000-2,000 MW of RE in the next five years. We’re all over Luzon to identify these affordable sites. That’s the program from MGen. Hopefully we can provide this support to Meralco,” MGen president and CEO Rogelio Singson said.

Singson—who is also senior vice president at Meralco—said the power distributor also has to balance its power sources.

“It cannot be no-coal immediately,” he said.

To reduce carbon footprint, the group is looking at carbon capture and storage technology for coal-fired power plants, which are still considered as the cheapest power source in the country.

“There has to be a roadmap… a transition plan and this requires basically cooperation from all not only from the private sector but even the government because the government should lay down the policies for this transition to happen,” Espinosa said.

“We cannot make it work alone because there are other conditions that are dependent on government policies and actions,” he said.

The Philippines already sources 32 percent of its total power requirements from renewable energy sources. This is higher than the ASEAN regional target of 23 percent by 2030.

For its part, the Philippine government is employing a technology neutral stance on power development to focus on the country’s energy security.

“We really need to develop energy security…we’re still building our capacity that’s why DOE (Department of Energy) adopted technology neutrality.  We need to fill up our capacity to sufficient reserves,” Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said.

To balance this, the DOE is also continuously pushing for the development of RE projects.