Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen), the power generating arm of the Manila Electric Company (MERALCO), one of the electricity providers in the Philippines, is considering establishing a solar-battery project in Indonesia in order to export its product to Singapore
According to Jaime Azurin, MGen president and CEO, they are currently looking into hopefully exporting renewable energy from Indonesia to Singapore because they have a Singapore plant. This one is renewable. Solar-battery in Indonesia exporting power to Singapore. In addition, the plant will be owned by PacificLight Power Pte. Ltd. in partnership with an Indonesian company.
Despite the fact that the concept is still in its early phases, Azurin claimed that given the significant investments required for the submarine cables that would be utilized to export the power, the plant’s capacity should be greater than 300 megawatts (MW).
However, Azurin said that the project is a “difficult challenge” because there will be a lot of issues when laying down cable going to Singapore especially for the permit from the Indonesian government to export because not all governments would agree to export their power.
Currently, Meralco PowerGen can generate more than 2,200 MW of electricity in both Singapore and the Philippines. The corporation now owns a total of 58 percent of PacificLight, a subsidiary of the Singaporean government, which runs an 800-MW liquefied natural gas facility in Jurong Island, Singapore.
In the five years to come, MGen plans to create 1,500 MW of renewable energy projects in the Philippines through its fully owned subsidiary MGen Renewable Energy Inc.
“We would like to build our capacity first locally for the Philippines and we would look at opportunities outside, in Southeast Asia. Once we reach maybe a gigawatt or so, at least we can honestly say to ourselves we’ve taken part in sustainability objectives of the country and then we will start doing outside. But we are already preparing for the outside,” said Azurin.
