AboitizPower spending P78 Billion this year

MANILA, Philippines — Aboitiz Power Corp. is jacking up its capital expenditure (capex) to P78.1 billion this year, with the bulk earmarked for its green energy fleet.

The power generation arm of the Aboitiz Group has allocated 66 percent of the budget or about P51.55 billion for its renewable energy (RE) portfolio.

“This reflects the company’s thrust to expand its clean energy capacity to 4,600 MW (megawatts),” AboitizPower said in a statement yesterday.Last year, the company programmed a capital spending of P73 billion, with RE also accounting for the lion’s share or around P52.56 billion.

In a recent interview, AboitizPower president and CEO Danel Aboitiz expressed optimism on the company’s growth prospects this year despite relatively low electricity rates in the spot market during the first quarter.

“We’ve been able to contract a good portion of our portfolio to shield us from those low WESM (Wholesale Electricity Spot Market) prices. So AboitizPower should be okay,” he said.

The average price of power in WESM, the centralized venue for electricity trading, declined to P2.73 per kilowatt (kW)-hour in February, the lowest in over two years.

Aboitiz, however, is counting on the next wave of power projects that are expected to bring an additional capacity to the company’s growing portfolio.

“A lot of the projects are long gestation. Beyond 2025, you should see those capacities coming in,” he said.

Likewise, Aboitiz is banking on the expansion of Aboitiz-owned Davao Light and Power Co. Inc., the country’s third-largest privately owned distribution utility by customer size and annual energy sales.

“That’s another 100 MW of franchise area. I don’t know if that will be completed this year, but next year, (it will be completed) for sure,” he said.

AboitizPower was the country’s second-biggest power producer in terms of capacity as of end-December 2024, according to the latest data from the Energy Regulatory Commission.

It had a national market share of 21.75 percent or around 5.89 million kW in capacity, closely behind the 22.44 percent of tycoon Ramon Ang’s San Miguel Global Power.

AboitizPower was the most dominant power generator in Mindanao. It was also the second and third leading player in Luzon and the Visayas, respectively.