Meralco PowerGen Corporation (MGen), the power generation investment arm of Manila Electric Company, has acquired 20-percent of the shareholdings held by its Singaporean firm-partner Sunseap in the 50-megawatt PowerSource First Bulacan Solar Inc. (PFBSI) project.

With the equity purchase, MGen has already hiked its aggregate shareholdings in the solar venture to 60-percent from previously at 40-percent. The shares were bought via MGen subsidiary MGreen or Meralco Renewable Energy.

Sunseap’s shareholdings in PFBSI had been 24-percent prior to the MGen acquisition. The other shareholder is PowerSource Energy Holdings Corporation with 36-percent, a company led by businessman Aloysius Colayco.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), Meralco stated that the transaction with Sunseap involved the divestment of the latter’s 315,839 shares in PFBSI venture.

The transaction value had been placed at P158,950,300, according to the Meralco firm, noting further that “the acquisition is in line with MGen’s goal to diversify and increase investment in the renewable energy sector.”

Meralco added the shares purchase “increases the attributable and net sellable capacity of MGreen, which is in line with MGen’s goal of building a portfolio of 1,000MW renewable energy projects in the next 5 to 7 years.”

MGen President and CEO Rogelio L. Singson constantly noted that the RE capacity buildup of the company will be done through asset acquisitions and installations of greenfield capacities.

The PowerSource Bulacan solar farm will reach commercial stream by first quarter of this year; and its generated electricity has been committed to Meralco via a power supply agreement.

The medium term project development trajectory of MGreen had been anchored on solar as well as wind power developments; and these are targeted in various parts of the country.

RE is the next ‘big game” of industry players in the Philippine energy sector, and this will be chiefly anchored on advancing the State-underpinned Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), a policy that will provide market to RE projects by mandating the distribution utilities to source a prescribed percentage

of their supply from these clean energy capacities.

For MGen, the RE investment platform will complement its proposed thermal plant installations which may kick-off with the blueprinted 1,200MW Atimonan project in Quezon province.