MANILA, Philippines — Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen) of tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan is gearing up for a power surge as it aims to double the size of its business in the next five years.
In an interview, MGen president and CEO Emmanuel Rubio said the company expects to double its net saleable capacity to 10,346 megawatts by 2030, from the current 5,068 MW.
MGen is likewise poised to achieve an attributable capacity of 5,288 MW from 2,559 MW, he said.
Net selling capacity refers to the actual amount of electricity that a company can sell to the market, while the attributable output is the total capacity a specific firm owns or controls.
For MGen’s power expansion, Rubio is counting on the group’s strategic investments in both conventional and renewable energy (RE) projects.
In particular, MGen anticipates a significant boost from the completion of the P200-billion MTerra Solar, set to become the world’s largest integrated solar facility upon completion in 2027.
Spanning the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Bulacan, the project consists of a 3,500-MW solar farm paired with a 4,500-MW-hour battery storage component.
“With Phase 1 on track for completion by early 2026 and Phase 2 targeted the following year, MGen is set to exceed its 1,500 MW attributable RE capacity goal by 2027 – three years ahead of the original 2030 timeline,” Rubio said.
Other growth projects in MGen’s portfolio, he said, include the 1,200-MW Atimonan coal plant in Quezon and the 73-MW Toledo coal expansion in Cebu, both of which recently secured government approval.
This reaffirmed that the projects remain outside the coverage of the existing coal moratorium, which bars the processing of applications for new coal facilities.
Rubio is also banking on MGen’s gas investments: the 1,275-MW Excellent Energy Resources Inc. plant in Batangas and the 600-MW hydrogen-ready plant being developed by Singapore-based unit PacificLight Power Pte. Ltd.
In the first half this year, MGen delivered a total of 12,644 gigawatt-hours of energy, marking a 66-percent increase from the same period last year.
The growth was mainly attributed to improved dispatch across the company’s power plants, consistently high plant availability and increased capacity contributions.
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