Lopez group to boost power capacity

MANILA, Philippines—The Lopez-led First Gen Corp., along with its subsidiaries and affiliates, will embark on an aggressive expansion of existing generating facilities to increase total capacity by almost 500 megawatts over the next four or five years.

Francis Giles Puno, president and COO of First Gen, disclosed that the company would pursue various expansion projects within the existing geothermal concession areas of Energy Development Corp., namely, the 20-MW Nasulo, 50-MW Mindanao 3, 40-MW Bacon-Manito3 and 40-MW Kayabon power projects.

Another subsidiary, First Gen Renewables Inc., applied for renewable energy service contracts with the Department of Energy for 14 wind sites and has been given priority over six sites. These are located in Luzon and Northern Mindanao.

According to Puno, First Gen is looking at a wind power portfolio of about 200 MW to be put up over the next four years. While Puno did not give investment figures, company officials expect to spend $2.5 million to produce a megawatt of wind power. This means that for a 200-MW portfolio, the company has to spend as much as $500 million or about P22.5 billion for wind power projects.

“It is our hope that we will finally get the Energy Regulatory Commission-approved feed in tariff for wind projects in order to start constructing EDC’s 86-MW Burgos wind farm in Ilocos,” Puno said, noting that this would be the first among the planned wind projects that would be put up.

Apart from its geothermal expansion and wind power projects, First Gen is also looking at various mini-hydro projects with a combined capacity of 80 MW. These prospects are now being studied by the company to help meet the electricity needs of Mindanao in the near term.

For the hydropower projects, the company expects to invest $3 million to produce a megawatt, according to First Gen chairman Federico Lopez. This means that an 80-MW hydropower portfolio will require as much as $240 million, or about P10.8 billion.

Lopez said the company was planning to implement the projects in phases, with the first 50 MW to be put up within two to three years.

Should all the projects push through, the company will be able to increase its total installed capacity from the current 2,833 MW. Of this, 1,500 MW (53 percent) come from natural gas power plants; 1,199 MW (42 percent) from geothermal, and 133.6 MW (5 percent) from hydro resources.