Listed firm SPC Power Corporation is pacing its investment shift into renewables, with targeted solar and hydro projects, as well the deployment of battery energy storage systems.
According to SPC Chairman Alfredo L. Henares, the company “has been looking seriously at projects in the solar and battery areas of the renewable space,” with him adding that “we’ve closely reviewed a couple this year and we will be making investment in that.”
He nevertheless qualified that “our efforts in solar still have to yield some good results, but it's an area we’re looking deeply into and we hope to have something in there by late this year or early next year.”
Henares stipulated that “RE is very much on our radar and in fact, we’ve evaluated three projects this year – one in solar and two in battery storage. And the one in battery is progressing and hopefully, we will have a favorable conclusion to that investment this year.
Cesar O. Villegas, senior vice president for Business Development and Commercial Operations of SPC, further indicated that “we’re looking into a partnership for hydro,” emphasizing that the targeted ventures are “small hydro projects that we are looking at possibly entering into a JV (joint venture).”
SPC executives have not given specific details yet on the company that they are targeting for partnership in hydropower investments.
On the planned expansion projects, SPC Treasurer Jaime M. Balisacan noted that they are in the process of securing approval for additional P220 million capital expenditure (capex) to bankroll new projects within the year.
He specified the company already lined up initial P44 million capex, but that will just be to keep their existing capital assets. “There have been delays in the capital expenditures because of the quarantine effects and the lockdown,” he said.
On the financial sphere, Balisacan indicated “we are quite optimistic facing these coming quarters – and our reference is: because of our actual performance for the first quarter.”
He expounded that while the company experienced declines across their business segments last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic -- especially in the second quarter because of the strict lockdowns enforced then -- that has so far been reversed as manifested in the firm’s first quarter financial outcome this 2021, which already logged “6.0-percent improvement in performance as compared to the second quarter of last year.”
SPC’s existing portfolio of power plant assets comprise of thermal facilities in the Visayas grid, primarily in the Cebu area – including the coal plant which is its partnership with Korea Electric Power Corporation.