AboitizPower shuns coal in favor of natural gas

Aboitiz Power Corp. has been on a pivot toward renewable energy and away from coal-based electricity generation—even before the Department of Energy (DOE) announced a moratorium on greenfield coal projects—and is now even considering natural gas as an added boost for recovery from the pandemic.

“With regard to our long-term plans, while we have not seen the guidelines of the moratorium, we support the views expressed by [Secretary Alfonso Cusi]. It’s a step in the right direction,” AboitizPower president and chief executive Emmanuel V. Rubio said at a press briefing.

On Oct. 27, Cusi announced the DOE would no longer accept new applications for coal-fired projects. A detailed policy has yet to be issued.

“We are … seeing increasing cost in insurance [and are] having difficulties in financing for coal-fired plants,” Rubio said. “That is why, as we have mentioned before, we are not going to do any greenfield coal plants moving forward.”

The CEO added, however, that the company has provisions for additional generators in their existing coal-fired plants. Aside from coal-fired plants, the rest of AboitizPower’s generation portfolio consists of large hydro, run-of-river hydro, geothermal and solar assets.

“We expect that the demand for physical capacity based on renewable energy will come in in 2025 instead of 2023 because of the pandemic [which pushed down electricity consumption],” he added.

Even then, AboitizPower’s goal is to expand its generation portfolio from around 940 megawatt today to about 1,800 MW.

In light of this, “we have landbanked, we have [erected] met masts [or towers] for wind in three different locations and we have several run-of-river hydros in the pipeline,” Rubio said.

Rubio said AboitizPower had also set up a team to look into natural gas as a serious option for their baseload strategy, referring to large-capacity projects that would run round the clock.

Adopting natural gas “is something that we are considering for the next 10 years, given that the Philippines will require baseload capacities anywhere from 680 MW to 750 MW year-on-year,” Rubio added.