Manila Electric Company (Meralco), a Philippine power utility giant, intends to adjust the way its supply portfolio is constructed to take into account the fact that hyperscale data centers prefer to run on renewable energy.
Companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and IBM are examples of hyperscale data centers, which concentrate on processing massive amounts of data as well as servicing the storage needs or cloud computing services of enterprises.
According to Ray C. Espinosa, Meralco President and CEO, all of the hyperscalers are in communication with Meralco regarding their power needs, so they are planning both their rollout and their power purchase accordingly. The power utility company’s massive energy planning change is in line with the goal of the country to become a hub for hyperscale data centers.
Espinosa claimed that these companies truly saw the Philippines as a “destination point” based on their discussions with all of these hyperscalers. He said that the Philippines is now seen as a hub for the hyperscaler data center industry and 4 to 5 underwater cables are essentially arriving there, which will actually present a major opportunity for those in the telco space that have data centers, like PLDT, Globe, and the others
Moreover, Espinosa further mentioned that the nation is making progress in this area as a result of Singapore’s power supply issues, particularly in terms of its potential to offer renewable energy, which is now relied upon by these massive data centers to maintain their operations.
According to Ferdinand O. Geluz, Meralco Chief Commercial Officer, data centers’ energy requirements might gradually increase over time. Based on what they are observing, scaling in the first year may only have a minor impact; as a result, the entire impact may not be felt for five years.
Since hyperscalers would prefer renewable energy-generated capacity, Meralco noted that it would need to address these issues in its forward energy planning since they choose renewable sources for these data centers.
The government is actively pursuing the country’s energy transition plan, which prioritizes investments in renewable energy technology as the next wave of investments to be made as part of a “market risk management” strategy. The State-backed objective is to increase the capacity share of renewable energy in the Philippine power mix by 35% in 2030 and to 50% in 2040
