Page 6 - AsiaElec Week 27 2021

AsiaElec COAL POWER AsiaElec

Philippines’ San Miguel scraps

plans for three coal plants

PHILIPPINES THE Philippines’ San Miguel Corporation whether it should be exempted from the coal
(SMC) has abandoned plans to build 1,500 MW moratorium.
of coal-fired capacity at three plants across the Monsignor Noel Villareal, a Catholic Church
country. leader who has campaigned against the coal
The Department of Energy (DOE) said in a plants, welcomed DOE’s confirmation of the
letter send to the Center for Energy, Ecology and end of the three projects and said he hoped other
Development (CEED), an environmental think projects such as the Atimonan plant would also
tank, that SMC Global Power had halted plans be cancelled, the Phillipines’ Business World
to develop two fluidised bed coal-fired plants at reported.
Pagbilao and Sariaya, Quezon state, each with In October 2020, the Philippines govern-
600 MW of capacity. ment imposed a moratorium on the licensing of
The letter said that SMC Global Power had new coal power plants, with Philippines Energy
also discontinued its development of the 300- Secretary Alfonso Cusi saying that renewables
MW Looc Malabuyoc coal-fired power plant in would now drive the country’s energy future.
Cebu state.” A move away from coal is a major change of
The letter also confirmed three other projects policy for the country, where coal generated half
– the 300 MW expansion of SMC’s Malita plant, of all electricity in 2019.
the proposed 600 MW Merbau plant and the There is also a 12-GW pipeline of new coal
300 MW Ozamiz plants – had all been removed projects at various stages of development, which
from the DOE’s list of potential projects “due to would double the country’s existing 12-GW coal
non-submission of the required monthly power capacity.
project updates.” The moratorium could stop around 8 GW
CEED had sought information on seven coal of this 12 GW, according to data from Global
plants which were removed from the depart- Energy Monitor analysed by think-tank E3G.
ment’s list of proposed coal plants in October. Elsewhere in the retreat from coal, in May the
The letter was released by the Power for Peo- Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), owned by
ple Coalition (P4P) over the weekend. It was the giant Ayala conglomerate, announced plans
signed by Mario C. Marasigan, the director of to half its financing for coal power-fired plants in
the department’s Electric Power Industry Man- the next five years.
agement Bureau. BPI said that its loan portfolio for power
The DOE also confirmed Meralco was in dis- stood at 45% coal and diesel-fired projects, and
cussions with lenders as it had had encountered a similar share for renewables projects. The bal-
“challenges” in securing power purchase agree- ance of 10% is accounted for by gas-fired power
ments for its proposed 1,336 MW Atimonan projects.
plant. Coal-fired power plants account for around
Meanwhile, Orion Pacific Prime Energy, Inc.’s 58% of the Philippines’ power source, followed
1,200-MW Quezon coal-fired thermal plant by renewal energy (RE) and gas-fired power
project in Tagkawayan, Quezon is still under- plants, both at 21%. ™
going review, with the authorities considering

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