The power investment unit of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) considerably bucked the odds of electricity demand slump and economic contraction this year, as its three-quarter income climbed by 27-percent to P14.48 billion versus last year’s P11.385 billion in the same period.
SMC Global Power Holdings Corporation further noted that its operating income had just been marginally down by 3.0-percent to P28.989 billion compared to the year-ago level of P29.974 billion.
On its net sales, the company emphasized that this was down by 16-percent to P87.866 billion as compared to the heftier turnout of P105.142 billion in a parallel January-September stretch in 2019.
San Miguel is a leading power provider in the country with electricity generating portfolios across technologies – from coal, to gas and hydropower facilities.
The company is also continually expanding its power investment portfolio, with next focus on gas-fired power projects and renewable energy installations.
SMC President and COO Ramon S. Ang indicated the company is eyeing RE developments of up to 5,000 megawatts in the near to immediate term; and these will be dominated by planned hydro projects.
For the conglomerate’s international airport project in Bulacan, he noted that they are targeting to showcase “the biggest solar plant installation” to be integrated in that infrastructure facility.
“In the Bulacan airport, we will put up solar facilities, in all of the terminals. That will be one of the biggest in the Philippines,” the company chief executive said.
Wind is another domain of RE development that the San Miguel energy group is targeting, although the sites are still not set in the open at this time.
He added that for the proposed hydropower projects, “these are at various stages, but I cannot tell you where they are now at implementation.”
Ang qualified though that the construction of these generating facilities “will depend on when power demand will pick up again,” or when the Philippine economy recovers from the scourge of the health crisis.
“Because of the pandemic, all businesses had their investment and expansion plans stalled. So we have to time the implementation of these projects with the targeted economic recovery – and they’re saying that’s in 2024 or 2025,” he said.
The company is likewise casting on blueprint around 2,550 megawatts of power capacity that will be fueled with liquefied natural gas – and the three-phased generating units are targeted on stream on several years, with the first unit eyed in 2022.