Meralco sets P110-B capital spending
By MYRNA M. VELASCO
Power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) is allocating capital spending of up to P110 billion for renewable energy (RE) facilities, electric vehicles (EVs) and other projects’ buildup that will underpin its sustainability agenda to be concretized until 2030.
In a media briefing, Meralco Chief Sustainability Officer Raymond B. Ravelo stated that of the programmed capital expenditures (capex), the company has earmarked the bulk for RE installations; and a substantial pie will also go to deployment of electric vehicles.
“Roughly we’re looking at a capex of over a P100 billion, closer to P110 billion. About half of that will be for the non-regulated space, and greater than P30 billion for renewable energy projects,” he said.
For the targeted scale of EV deployments, Ravelo specified that “about close to P1.0 billion will be for EVs; but still to be determined depending on how we will roll out the EVs.”
Meralco President Ray C. Espinosa qualified that the proposed capital outlay “are still broad figures”’ and these have yet to secure the approval of the company’s board of directors.
“We still have to go to board approval every year for particular projects,” the Meralco chief executive noted, adding that the P110-billion magnitude of investments had been reckoned on scenarios that all of their propounded ventures will be approved by the company’s board.
Separately, Ronnie L. Aperocho, first vice president and head of networks of Meralco, indicated that for their distribution networks’ capex, the allocation for this year had been pegged at P21 billion – and that will be subject to the approval of the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Given the power firm’s expanding customer base and forecasts of electricity demand hike post-pandemic, Meralco has been continuously upgrading its distribution facilities and expanding its load network so it can reliably serve its subscribers.
On the firm’s power generation businesses, Meralco PowerGen President Jaime T. Azurin emphasized that the programmed projects had been earmarked with a capex of up to P5.0 billion for the firm’s blueprinted RE developments.
“For One Meralco group power generation, we’re looking at around P4.0 billion to P5.0 billion as far as solar projects are concerned. For other thermal plants, we have not yet decided for 2022,” he stressed.
The RE installation plan of Meralco PowerGen will to be reach 1,500MW in the next seven years – and these are being anchored on various technologies, including solar, wind and biomass facilities.