Meralco eyes bigger stake in solar firm SPNEC
By Alena Mae S. Flores – August 18, 2024, 7:35 pm
from manilastandard.net
Power retailer Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is willing to take a bigger stake in SP New Energy Corp. (SPNEC), the developer of the largest single-site solar project worldwide, a top executive said.
“If it’s open, why not? It’s a good project. It owns 100-percent of Terra Solar. It’s the largest single-site solar facility in the world, and the Philippines should be proud of that,” Meralco chairman Manuel Pangilinan said when asked about planned increase in the company’s stake in SPNEC.
“It’s a very complex [and] huge undertaking. And I believe that once the entire 3,500 [megawatts] on 4,000 hectares are built, if we send you to outer space, you can take a photo of that facility from outer space,” Pangilinan said.
SPNEC, through Terra Solar is developing a 3,500-megawatt utility scale solar with 4,500 megawatthour battery energy storage system in Nueva Ecija and Bulacan costing P200 billion.
The project spans five municipalities and 11 barangay and acquired a total of 2,620.8 hectares of land, of which 1,932.9 hectares are for phase 1, and the balance for the subsequent phase.
SPNEC president Emmanuel Rubio said the Terra Solar project was 54-percent completed in the project development phase as of the second week of July 2024.
Rubio said the Terra Solar project would be completed in two phases, with phase 1 by 2026 and phase 2 by 2027.
MGen Renewable Energy Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen), signed a subscription agreement on Nov. 30, 2023 for 15.7 billion common shares with par value of P1 per share and 19.4 billion preferred shares with par value of P0.01 per share for a total subscription price of P15.9 billion.
MGen is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Meralco, and MGreen is considered as the controlling shareholder of SPNEC with a total voting interest of 53.66 percent as of Aug. 12, 2024.
SPNEC posted a net income of P339 million in the first half of 2024, a turnaround from its P34.754-million net loss in the same period last year as revenues soared to P717 million from P64 million.
