SP New Energy Corporation (SPNEC), a solar power producer controlled by Manila Electric Company (Meralco) through Meralco Power Gen Corporation (MGen), looking at developing another massive solar farm in Southern Luzon.
In an interview, Meralco Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said SPNEC is putting up second major project in Batangas in addition to the Nueva Ecija and Bulacan project of subsidiary Terra Solar Philippines Inc. (TSPI).
Terra Solar which is currently developing the world’s largest solar farm with a 3,500-megawatt solar power plant and a 4,000-megawatt-hour energy storage system targetted completion by 2027. Project cost is about P200 billion.
“We’re talking to Lean (Leandro Leviste, the founder of SPNEC) but nothing has been finalized,” said Pangilinan. Leviste hails from Batangas and has recently announced a plan to invest up to P5 billion for several development projects in the province.
He noted that Leviste informed them that there is land available in Batangas that can be developed into a solar farm and, while the property may not as big as the first Terra Solar project, the site for the second Terra Solar plant still encompasses “several thousand hectares.”
Pangilinan said the potential Batangas project will still be undertaken through SPNEC which will soon be renamed MGreen after MGen injects its other solar assets into the company.
He said this will effectively be a backdoor listing for MGreen “because we can inject our existing solar projects, operating and non-operating into SPNEC.”
MGen is the power generation arm of Meralco and MGreen or MGen Renewable Energy Inc. is a the renewable power subsidiary of MGen.
Pangilinan said injecting MGreen’s assets into SPNEC will make the corporate structure leaner with all solar power assets housed under SPNEC.
In September last year, Meralco and SPNEC welcomed the entry of UK-based investment house Actis into the Terra Solar project, selling 40 percent of TSPI for $600 million.
The first phase of MTerra Solar is scheduled for completion by 2026, with the second phase expected to follow in 2027. Upon completion, the project will provide clean and sustainable power to around 2.4 million households in Luzon.