Meralco unit subsidiary seen closing P100-B loan soon

A subsidiary of Manila Electric Co. is in the final stages of choosing arrangers for a P100-billion loan that would bankroll the planned 1,200-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Quezon province.

Meralco touts the facility that will be run by Atimonan One Energy Inc. (A1E) as the Philippines’ first “ultra supercritical” coal-fired power plant.

According to the Brussels-based nonprofit GreenFacts Initiative, an ultra supercritical power plant operates at temperatures and pressures above the critical point of water, where there is no difference between water gas and liquid water.

GreenFacts—whose avowed mission is to provide nonexperts with unbiased, factual content of complex scientific consensus reports on health and the environment—said this made such power plants more efficient than conventional coal-fired plants.

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