Aboitiz to shift away from 80% coal, diesel power portfolio

MANILA  -Aboitiz Power Corp. is optimistic that its new clean energy projects will drive its growth momentum next year as part of the company’s decarbonization strategy of achieving a 50-50 balance between its renewable and thermal assets.

Among the projects expected to start delivering power to the national grid next year are the 159-megawatt (MW) Laoag solar power plant and a 24-MW battery energy storage system project, according to Juan Alejandro Aboitiz, the company’s newly appointed chief financial officer.

“We are on track to deliver our growth aspirations, and obviously there are opportunities to build more [renewable energy], such as wind,” Aboitiz said in a statement.

Aboitiz assumed his new role on Nov. 1 after serving as the company’s vice president for commercial operations for a year.

AboitizPower currently has around 1,000 MW of renewable energy projects that it plans to increase to 4,600 MW by the end of the decade.

Its thermal facilities have a combined capacity of around 4,500 MW, nearly 90 percent of which comes from coal-fired power plants. The remaining 10 percent comes from diesel-fired facilities.

New solar plant

This year, Aboitiz said their 94-MW Cayanga solar power plant in Pangasinan province already started commercial operations to help meet rising demand while increasing the company’s renewable energy capacity.

Last week, he told reporters that his company sought to earmark around P50 billion in capital expenditures next year to fund expansion plans, particularly the development of new renewable energy technologies such as solar and wind power.

“As we continue to build renewable energy, we also have to ensure that there is sufficient baseload capacity. In order to have a just and equitable transition, the entire energy system has to evolve,” Aboitiz said, adding that the country’s transmission network needs to be able to “manage more variability in the grid.”

Aboitiz likewise noted that this would help in reaching the government’s goal of increasing the share of renewables in the Philippine energy mix from the current 22 percent to 35 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040.

With AboitizPower’s net income rising by 37 percent to P26.7 billion in the first nine months of the year on the back of better plant availability, the official said they were hoping to continue the momentum in 2024.

“We feel that we are in a good position to support the grid by keeping the availability of our [power] plants high and our costs down because we want to ensure that we’re minimizing the impact on the end-consumer as much as possible,” he said. —Meg J. Adonis