San Miguel continues push in power

SMC President Ramon S. Ang: Interested in hydropower. ARNOLD ALMACEN/INQUIRER

Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. is beefing up its hydropower-generation portfolio with the acquisition of existing power plants and a possible foray into renewable energy development.

San Miguel president Ramon S. Ang confirmed to the Inquirer that the company was interested in hydropower development and was hoping to acquire a “good” asset through the auctions being conducted by the state-owned Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM).

Ang told the Inquirer that San Miguel remained interested in getting the independent power producer administrator (IPPA) contracts for the 150-megawatt (MW) Casecnan multipurpose power facility in Nueva Vizcaya and the 728-MW Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan hydropower plants.

IPPs like Casecnan and CBK are contracted to supply electricity to the state-run National Power Corp. When these are turned over to the private sector, the winning bidders will have to manage the contracted capacities of the government in the IPP plants.

San Miguel is also planning to put up three run-of-river hydropower facilities in Pangasinan and Aklan to generate an additional 40 MW.

Documents from the Department of Energy (DoE) showed that San Miguel, through its subsidiary Strategic Power Development Corp., wanted to put up the 20-MW West Upper San Roque pumped storage power project and the 10-MW East Upper San Roque pumped storage power facility, both in Pangasinan. Strategic Power was also looking at the 10-MW Aklan pumped storage power project in Nabaoy, Aklan.

The applications for renewable energy service contracts for the three projects are still pending at the DoE.

Strategic Power is the IPP Administrator of the 345-MW San Roque multipurpose hydroelectric power plant in Pangasinan that it acquired in a bidding conducted by PSALM in 2009.

The San Roque facility is meant to be a peaking plant that was constructed by a consortium composed of Marubeni Corp., Sithe Philippines Holdings Inc. and Italian-Thai Development Public Issuer Ltd. under a build-operate-transfer scheme with Napocor.

San Miguel is one of the top players in the power generation industry following successful acquisitions of government assets, including the IPPAs for the 1,200-MW Sual coal-fired power plant in Pangasinan and the 1,200-MW Ilijan natural gas facility in Batangas.