Power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) has formally launched its scholarship program for students and professionals who will be pursuing graduate studies or mid-career academic degrees in nuclear engineering at top-tier universities and institutions overseas.

The scholarship program, patently labelled as Filipino Scholars and Interns on Nuclear Engineering (FISSION), was announced by Meralco Chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan during the opening day of the 3-day Giga Summit convened by the Meralco Power Academy, and this serves as the power firm’s eminent contribution to enhancing the targeted technical competence and overall knowledge of Filipino workers on nuclear power developments as well as eventual facility operations; and then on regulatory and policy spheres of nuclear power’s integration into the country’s energy mix.

“Hopefully, this is the start of exploring and considering seriously new options for this country to achieve smarter and greener future,” Pangilinan asserted.

According to Meralco, this move is a “proactive bid to develop skilled professionals and advance the Philippines’ push for the integration of nuclear power in the country’s energy portfolio.”

As Pangilinan has emphasized,  Meralco will “invest in local talents and support aspiring Filipino nuclear engineers to help accelerate the development of the country’s technical and regulatory talent pipeline through education and training in the highly specialized field of nuclear engineering. “

He highlighted that “Meralco will send some of our engineers to a two-year graduate program targeting local talents who are graduates and practicing Mechanical, Electrical, Material Engineering, and related areas in universities in the US, in Canada, Korea, Japan, France.”

The scholarship program will run from 2025 to 2027, and it will be offered as a two-year graduate program for those who are in the field of Mechanical, Electrical, Materials, and Metallurgical Engineering, Physics as well as other related disciplines.

“Meralco is eyeing top global engineering universities, including the University of California in Berkeley, the University of Illinois, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, and Université Paris–Saclay, for the program,” the power firm stressed.

Meralco expounded that its FISSION program will include “a one-year immersion and internship from 2027 to 2028 at partner SMR facilities abroad,” – primarily the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) which have been participating in the company’s ongoing Giga Summit.

As part of the condition to the scholarship endowments, the company specified that “upon completion of the graduate and internship programs, Meralco will implement a Re-entry Action Plan to facilitate the scholars’ return to the Philippines in 2029.,” adding that “the scholars are expected to render their expertise to the company and to the Philippine government.”  

Meralco apprised prospective scholar-candidates that “the application process for the pilot batch of the program will open in 2024,” and the announcement of qualifications and other details of the program will be in the succeeding months.

It further stated that  “part of FISSION’s objectives is to address identified gaps that could impede the government’s transformative initiatives, such as the absence of expert safety regulators and technical professionals capable of operating nuclear technologies, specifically the small modular reactors (SMR) and micro modular reactors (MMR).”

Most of the nuclear engineers and professionals who were part of the development of the idled Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) have already been retired or had moved to overseas markets, hence, there is a need to re-calibrate the skills and talents of Filipinos on nuclear engineering.

In the recently-concluded World Nuclear Symposium in the United Kingdom, executives of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation - a company that has more than 5,300MW of nuclear power capacity installations in the United Arab Emirates - has conveyed to Energy Undersecretary Sharon S. Garin that roughly half of their more than 2,000 regular technical and administrative workforce are Filipinos; and they are as excited to be back in the Philippines to help in the resurgence of the country’s nuclear power ambitions.

Even in major markets like the United States, capacity enhancement via scholarship programs on nuclear engineering is also being pursued – and among their most renowned scholar is Miss USA 2023 Grace Stanke who is pursuing nuclear engineering degree in the University of Wisconsin.

Being a core player in the country’s energy sector, Meralco noted that it is “proactively preparing for the introduction of nuclear technologies in the Philippines.”