Power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) is extending its investment interest to other nuclear technologies like small modular reactors (SMR) and conventional nuclear fleets – and that could include the planned repowering of the idled Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) if the government would finally take serious steps in prospectively reviving the facility’s operations.

According to Meralco Chief Operating Officer Ronnie L. Aperocho, “we’re open to all technologies. I heard MVP (in reference to Meralco Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan) that if the government will solicit the support of our group to somehow look into the possibility of putting up conventional, we know there’s a lot of challenge and all that – but we’re just here to support the government on its nuclear agenda.”

When asked if BNPP repowering will be one venture that Meralco would be keeping its eyes on, Aperocho noted that “if that’s part of the option, why not?”

The Philippine government, with the initiative of the Department of Energy (DOE), is reopening doors on new round of feasibility study that might be undertaken by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) on BNPP’s potential revival -- primarily on fleshing out the magnitude of investment required to bring the facility back to life.

First half financial result briefing with Meralco executives

The Meralco executives will be travelling again to Canada and United States next week not just to sign scholarship and internship agreements with universities for capacity enhancement program on nuclear engineering for its people, but also to meet with various industry players on its plan to expand investment foray across nuclear technologies.

“We have our trip in Canada and we have a side trip in Illinois - it’s not just about the MOU (memorandum of understanding) signing or the scholars’ program – actually we intend to meet a lot of the leading players in the nuclear energy industry in the US and Canada,” Aperocho divulged.

While Meralco initially cemented a deal with US firm Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) on micro modular reactors (MMR), he emphasized that at this time, “we’re looking beyond just USNC because we know that the government has this plan to have 1,200 megawatts of nuclear by 2032, micro modular is not enough, we have to look into the SMR and the conventional nuclear.”

New scholarship, internship deals lined up with South Korea, Japan and France

Alongside goals to broaden investment options in the nuclear sector, Meralco executives conveyed that the company will likewise firm up more scholarship and internship deals with foreign universities in South Korea as well as those in Japan and France as part of the overall preparation for their technical team on eventual nuclear power developments that the company will be engaging itself in.

Meralco First Vice President and Head of Networks Froilan J. Savet indicated “we’re going to Canada next week for MOU signing with Ontario Tech University because we plan to send scholars – to study nuclear engineering next year.”

He expounded “as part of that trip also, we’re going to Illinois to sign MOU with the University of Illinois because we’re going to send two scholars for nuclear engineering starting school year this September – two Meralco employee-scholars.”

Aperocho highlighted that the deal being eyed with South Korea will be internship arrangement for the initial batch of scholars that Meralco had sent to offshore universities in the United States and China as helmed under its Filipino Scholars and Interns on Nuclear Engineering (FISSION) program.

“For the internship with Korea, that’s part of the plan - not only with Korea but also with France and Japan, so we’re leading in terms of capability development in training our people and the Korea internship will just be part of that,” he stressed.

Aperocho further said “we need to look into a lot of options, basically talking about EPIRA (Electric Power Industry Reform Act) supporting BBM’s (President Marcos) mandate to build more infrastructure – and nuclear power plant is within that to address power problems in the country, to have more power plants.”

Electric utilities typically look at the deployment of conventional nuclear reactors as the cornerstone of energy supply reliability given their ability to produce massive-scale baseload power capacity.

Savet similarly stated that initial actions by the Nuclear Energy Program-Inter-Agency Committee (NEP-IAC) on addressing the 19 key infrastructure hurdles laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on nuclear power development certainly manifest advancement on to the country’s nuclear renaissance pathway.

He added the plan to do auction for nuclear capacity by 2027 could also be a viable step to aptly prepare investors for the targeted initial 1,200MW of nuclear installations in the Philippines by 2032 as cast in the Nuclear Energy Program.