MERALCO PowerGen Corp. (MGen) is seeking certification from the Department of Energy (DoE) to confirm that its Atimonan power project is exempt from the 2020 coal moratorium, allowing it to proceed with its proposed 1,200-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant.
“[The] project is on the committed list, so it’s outside of the moratorium. We’re trying to get a DoE certification to confirm… [and] to start discussions on the SIS (system impact study) and to look for an engineering study,” MGen President and Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel V. Rubio told reporters last week.
Atimonan One Energy, Inc. (A1E), a subsidiary of MGen, initially proposed to develop a 1,200-MW ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant for the project site under the environmental compliance certificate issued in 2015.
The company previously dropped its plan and decided to repurpose the coal-fired power project to one that runs on gas.
Based on a project description document submitted to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, A1E proposed to develop instead a 2,400-MW natural gas-fired combined cycle gas turbine and a liquefied natural gas terminal with floating storage unit.
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Manuel V. Pang-ilinan said that the project is currently “licensed, permitted, authorized to do a coal plant.”
“We don’t know yet whether we stay with coal or we switch it to natural gas,” Mr. Pangilinan said. “The inclination is to stay with coal. Because if it’s gas, we have to put up the terminal, the re-gas facility.”
In 2020, the DoE issued a moratorium on the development of new coal-fired power plants.
The government agency earlier clarified that the moratorium does not cover existing and operational coal-fired power generation facilities as well as any coal-fired power projects considered committed power projects.
Following a thorough review and verification by the Power Bureau, the DoE issues at the request of a project proponent a certification that a project is not covered by the moratorium.
Several proponents of coal-fired power projects have requested the DoE’s confirmation on non-coverage, and these were “ministerially issued” after verification, the DoE said.
“We believe that the project is part of the active project list as a coal plant. We just want to make sure that since there have been revisions in the past,” Mr. Rubio said in a Viber message.
Meralco’s controlling stakeholder, Beacon Electric Asset Holdings, Inc., is partly owned by PLDT Inc.
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