Meralco unit eyes cross-border power project in Indonesia, Singapore
By Alena Mae S. Flores – April 2, 2023, 5:42 pm
from manilastandard.net
PacificLight Power Pte. Ltd., controlled by Meralco PowerGen Corp., is studying putting up a solar plant in Indonesia that will supply power to Singapore via an undersea cable, a company executive said over the weekend.
MGen, the power arm of Manila Electric Co., holds a combined direct and indirect interest of 58 percent in PacificLight.
“We are right now looking in to hopefully exporting renewable from Indonesia to Singapore because we have a Singapore plant. Singapore, there’s not much land there, there so much land on the Indonesian side and there are many islands there,” MGen president and chief executive Jaime Azurin said.
“Hopefully, we will be able to get the export permit from the Indonesian government. It is very meticulous because you are passing through cross border,” Azurin said.
He said PacificLight would team up with an Indonesian company to develop the project.
“The most difficult part is the permit from the Indonesian government to export because not all governments would agree to export their power,” Azurin said.
He said they were trying to develop the project for the past years, “and hopefully within the year something will come out of it.”
PacificLight announced in 2021 it forged a strategic partnership with Medco Power Indonesia and Gallant Venture for the development of a solar PV project to import solar power from Bulan Island to Singapore.
PacificLight said it was looking at a 670-megawatt pilot solar project on Bulan Island, Indonesia to supply electricity to Singapore.
PacificLight operates an 800-MW liquefied natural gas facility in Jurong Island, Singapore which supplies electricity to industrial and retail customers.
The company’s consolidated core net income reached S$305 million (P12.1 billion) as of end-December 2022, a significant increase from the S$59.2 million (P2.2 billion) in 2021.
PacificLight’s LNG project delivered 5,619 gigawatt-hours of energy in 2022.
