New Meralco PowerGen President and CEO Emmanuel V. Rubio

As he leaps into another corporate environment, newly-designated Meralco PowerGen Corporation (MGen) President and CEO Emmanuel “Manny” V. Rubio will be navigating challenges as well as opportunities to steer his new organization into the realm of portfolio growth that shall also viably contribute to the company’s top and bottom lines.

MGen, which is the power generation investment arm of power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco), announced that Rubio formally took on his post this July 1; succeeding Jaime T. Azurin who will be retaining his post as President of Global Business Power Corporation, another subsidiary of the power utility company.

According to MGen, “Rubio brings a wealth of experience and expertise to MGen, having served most recently as the President and CEO Aboitiz Power Corporation where he led the company's transformation towards sustainable energy sources by driving significant growth in its renewable energy and balancing its power generation portfolio.”

Indubitably, Rubio had concluded his stint with Aboitiz Power from a position of success and stability until his retirement on June 30 this year.

The power industry is a familiar territory for the new MGen CEO, but since each company has its own unique DNA, Rubio’s most immediate to-do list is to build trust and rapport with his new team – especially so since the company is currently advancing several projects that are at simultaneous implementation phases.

MGen, nevertheless, has high confidence in its new CEO, with the firm noting that “Rubio’s career in the power industry is distinguished by a proven track record of exceptional leadership and success through the various executive positions he held in AboitizPower and its subsidiaries over the past years.”

Meralco Chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan indicated that Rubio “will play a very important role as MGen actively pursues growth prospects that will bring long-term value not just to the company, but also to the projects’ host communities and our country.”

Citing the group’s excitement to welcome Rubio into their turf, Pangilinan highlighted that they are looking forward to “his fresh perspectives and innovative ideas that will steer the power generation company towards becoming a reliable partner of the government in achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth.”

The Meralco subsidiary is currently ramping up commercial developments of its new power projects – not just in the Philippines, but also its offshore market in Singapore.

The biggest venture that MGen has been advancing to fruition is its 3,500-megawatt Terra Solar project, which has been designed to be integrated with 4,500-megawatt hours of energy storage.

Upon reaching commercial operations date (COD) by 2026, the Terra Solar installation will be supplying 850MW of mid-merit capacity to Meralco, as underpinned by the power supply agreement (PSA) inked by the relevant parties for the project.

Apart from RE developments, MGen is similarly pursuing investments in the thermal sphere of power generation – primarily for gas, which is its partnership with Aboitiz Power and SMC Global Power Holdings of the San Miguel group; and prospectively other technologies to help solve the threatening power crisis in the country.

MGen expounded that Rubio “is expected to oversee the success of the company’s plans and strategies that are well aligned with the government’s pursuit to achieve energy security and global sustainability goals.”