Meralco to keep focus on coal-fed plants

Renewable energy may be the world’s solution to global warming, but the country’s biggest power distributor said it would not divert from investing mainly in coal power plants, which generate more energy at a lower cost, to solve the Philippines’ immediate needs.

Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) chair Manuel V. Pangilinan said that while investments in wind power would be aggressively pursued, the company would look mainly to coal power to supply the energy requirements of its consumers.

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) recently approved the much-awaited feed-in-tariff or FIT rates for four renewable energy resources, which represents the subsidy consumers will bear to give incentives to the industry: P9.68 a kilowatt-hour for solar; P8.53/kWh for wind; P6.63/kWh for biomass, and P5.90/kWh for hydropower projects.

“(Renewable energy) will not be that big for us,” Pangilinan told reporters. Most likely, he said Meralco would invest in wind farms producing a total of 100 to 200 megawatts (MW) of energy.

“That’s probably all we can do,” he said. “Wind farms just can’t produce that much power. Wind farms and other renewable can’t cope with higher energy requirements,” he added.

Meralco is looking at putting up a wind farm in Ilocos Norte as the company forays into the renewable energy-generation business.

The entry into the renewable energy sector is part of Meralco’s plan to install 2,500 MW in new generation capacity between now and 2020. Most of the new capacity, Pangilinan said, would come from geothermal and coal-fired plants.

Earlier this week, Meralco said it was addressing the issues delaying the 600-MW coal-fired power plant project at the Subic Bay freeport that is being undertaken by subsidiary Meralco PowerGen Corp. through a joint-venture (Redondo Peninsula Energy) with the Aboitiz group.

The company said it was also looking at investing in liquefied natural gas-fired plants to diversify its generation portfolio.