Published January 11, 2018, 10:00 PM
By Myrna M.
Velasco
Power utility giant Manila Electric
Company (Meralco) is queuing capital spending of up to US$800 million for the
two wind farm projects that it had cast as prospective investments in Luzon.
That will be for total capacity
installation of 300 megawatts in two sites, one of which is 150MW that will be
within its franchise area and the other 150MW capacity in Ilocos Norte.
“That will cost $800 million plus or
minus. It will take maybe 24 months for these projects to be completed,”
Meralco President Oscar S. Reyes said.
But he qualified that the project
costs will have to be shared accordingly with their partners, as well as the
loan component that they will have to raise for these ventures.
Power projects, including utility
scale investments in the renewable energy sector, often thrive on a 70 percent
debt to 30 percent equity ratio.
Reyes noted that they are currently
in talks with prospective partners, but there was nothing signed yet as definitive
tie-up deal.
“We have gotten indications which
are attractively priced to us because they are significantly lower than the
second round of FIT (feed-in-tariff),” he said. The second wave FIT rate for
wind had been at R7.40 per kWh.
The Meralco executive qualified that
their investment radar on these wind farm ventures are those that are “under
development,” adding that “the existing developers are inviting us to provide
power supply agreements and at the same time for us to see if we will be
interested to co-invest with them.”
He similarly indicated the wind
projects will be developed under the Spectrum subsidiary of Meralco, its RE
investments arm.
“MGen (Meralco PowerGen) will be
mainly on large-scale power plants, baseload coal. It is a matter of allowing
them to focus on the big-ticket projects…we want MGen to focus on completing
their portfolio rather than be sidetracked.”
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