Meralco to put up solar farm

MANILA, Philippines — The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is targeting to put up one of the country’s largest solar farms as the company ramps up its renewable energy capacity, its chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

Pangilinan said during the opening day of Meralco’s Giga Summit yesterday, the company is committed to explore and develop more stable and sustainable energy alternatives.

“We are already in the solar and wind plants in parts of Luzon and we are pursuing what is likely to be one of the largest solar farms of the Philippines with about 2,500 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity and output capacity of 850 MW,” Pangilinan said.

“It also has a battery component of 4,000 MW so it is a big solar plant that is able to deliver quite a substantial amount of capacity in next two to three years,” he said.

Pangilinan did not identify the location of the project, saying that the company will have to acquire the land first.

He said the company is open to taking in potential partners for the planned solar project.

“Maybe we’ll have partners, but for now it is just us,” Pangilinan said.

Meralco, through its power generation arm Meralco PowerGen Corp., is investing at least P18 billion to accelerate the expansion of its renewable energy portfolio.

The investment, which forms part of One Meralco’s long-term sustainability strategy, will cover over two gigawatts (GW) of gross renewable energy capacity from solar and wind, which the company will build through 2030 along with its various partners.

Through renewable energy unit MGen Renewable Energy Inc., MGen intends to ramp up its attributable renewable energy capacity to 1,500 MW with investments in more and larger green energy projects.

These will also include projects with battery energy storage systems.

On the distribution side, Meralco has committed to raise the portion of renewable energy in its supply portfolio as part of the company’s long-term sustainability strategy.

Through Meralco’s strategic sourcing initiatives, renewable energy is expected to account for 22 percent of the distribution utility’s supply portfolio by 2030, and 18 percent of its retail electricity supplier, MPower, by 2025.