SMC Global Power Holdings Corporation (SMCGP), the power investment arm of San Miguel Corporation, has listed its P40-billion fixed rate bonds with the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corporation (PDEx), which has been touted as the largest corporate bond issuance to date.

According to SMCGP, the bond offering had been initially targeted to raise P30 billion, but due to high demand from investors, the company subsequently exercised its option for oversubscription of up to P10 billion.

The issue accounts for the first tranche of the P60-billion shelf-registered peso retail bonds of SMCGP – and such comprise of Series K bonds, with an interest rate of 5.9077% per annum due in 2025; Series L bonds with 7.1051% per annum interest rate and due in 2028, the Series M bonds at 8.0288% interest rate per annum that will lapse in 2032.

SMC President Ramon S. Ang said “the funds provided by these bonds come at an opportune time as we continue with our commitment to provide the country with reliable power supply, amidst present challenges in the global fuel market.”

He expounded that “despite global fuel cost and supply woes brought on by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, SMC’s power unit remains on track with plans to minimize the country’s dependence on coal, as part of the conglomerate's larger sustainability goals.”

The current focus of SMCGP’s investments are on liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, deployment of battery energy storage system (BESS) and renewable energy installations.

Ang noted “even as we work to maintain reliable and sufficient supply throughout this crisis, we are also very much focused on continuing our transition to cleaner and renewable fuel sources, without compromising on supply, quality, and affordability.”

The SMC chief executive highlighted that as part of SMCGP’s transition strategy, the company completed last month the installation of 500-megawatt hour (MWh) BESS power storage capacity in various sites nationwide.

The next phase of the firm’s target will be to ramp up BESS deployments to 700MWh by the end of this year; and to further accelerate it to 1,000MWh by 2023.

In Ang’s view, the BESS network of SMCGP “will be key to ensuring reliable power supply nationwide, even in far-off areas. It is designed to minimize wastage by storing and redistributing excess capacity to ensure even underserved regions can have the same sufficient, reliable electricity enjoyed by larger cities.”

He added the SMCGP’s BESS facilities “are also crucial to wider use of renewable energy in the country,” with him emphasizing that the intermittency of renewables could be addressed because “battery technology will enable renewable capacity to be stored, ready to be deployed even when solar or wind farms or hydropower plants are down.”