The net income of Aboitiz Power Corporation had soared 66-percent to P20.8 billion last year from P12.6 billion in 2020 on capacity addition of 668 megawatts from the unit 1 of its Dinginin coal-fired power plant and higher capacity injection into the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM),
For that upturn in financial performance, the company primarily credited the commercial commissioning of its GNPower Dinginin plant in Mariveles, Bataan as well as high water inflow that hiked the generation capacity of its hydropower facilities.
Beyond that, the power firm noted that its Therma Luzon Inc. coal plant also yielded higher availability while its other generating assets had higher dispatch in compliance with the must-offer rule of the WESM.
Aboitiz Power similarly indicated it was able to “claim liquidated damages for the delay in the construction of GNPower Dinginin units 1 and 2, and also received the final payment for business interruption claims resulting from GNPower Mariveles Energy Center Ltd. Co. (GMEC) and APRI (AP Renewables Inc) outages in previous years.”
According to Aboitiz Power President and CEO Emmanuel V. Rubio, “the new capacity from GNPD (GNPower Dinginin) unit 1 not only contributed to AboitizPower’s better financial performance but also delivered the much-needed energy supply as economic activities gradually increased in 2021.”
He added that the targeted synchronization of Unit 2 of the Dinginin power plant by the second quarter of this year “will help address the country’s thin reserves and meet critical market needs.”
Onward, Rubio highlighted that they are raising expectations for “continued operational improvements across our business units,” primarily as an outcome of the ‘digitalization strategy’ that they have been pursuing across their power generation and distribution assets.
The earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of the company, inclusive of power generation as well as retail electricity supply (RES) ventures, hovered at P43.4 billion in 2021, and that was 15-percent higher versus P37.7 billion that was registered in the previous year.
On last year’s fourth quarter, the Aboitiz firm posted consolidated net income of P5.2 billion; which was 4.2-percent lower from P5.6 billion within the same period in the prior year.
The company emphasized that it logged non-recurring losses of P192 million within the period
“due to the impairment losses of Therma Power Visayas, Inc. and Redondo Peninsula Energy, Inc.,” that was versus the P483 million non-recurring losses posted from the revaluation of dollar-denominated liabilities posted in 2020.
On the distribution segment of the company’s power business, EBITDA reached P7.5 billion, an escalation of 5.0-percent from the year-ago level of P7.2 billion.
The company said its sales in the distribution level had been up 4.0-percent to 5,584 gigawatt-hours as against 5,368 GWh in 2020.
“This was driven by higher energy consumption resulting from recoveries in demand,” Aboitiz Power stressed, adding that energy sales from the residential, commercial and industrial customer-segments have risen “due to less stringent community quarantines during 2021 and the resumption of operations of commercial and industrial customers.”