Dec 22 2010
The Lopez Group has plans of investing around $150 million in Mindanao by developing three new mini hydro generation plants. Elipido Ibanez, President of First Philippine Holdings, stated that FPH via various subsidiary companies is also planning to install solar farms on its wafer slicing plant to extract an additional 400 MW of solar energy apart from the original 600 MW.
The wafer slicing plant is owned by a joint venture between SunPower Manufacturing and First Philippine Electric, known as First Philec Solar.
Francis Giles Puno, Chief Finance Officer of FPH and President of First Gen, the power generation unit, stated that the new hydro units would be embarked on by First Gen. He also mentioned that Energy Development was planning to develop a new wind energy farm in Ilocos along with other geothermal projects, and also development of the existing power plants, which were purchased from National Power.
With regard to the mini hydro plants Puno revealed that these plants had a capacity of 50 to 60 MW and that Mindanao required more outlay in the power sector. By 2015 these new plants would be operational. Currently, feasibility studies were being carried out and the projects, which were easy to handle would definitely be considered. The group’s power portfolio consists mainly of clean and renewable energy and also a few gas-fired plants.
FPH also plans on submitting tenders for power plants such as Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan, Unified Leyte and Casecnan, which are all government-owned power plants. FPH having received a substantial amount by the sale of its share in Manila Electric, a power distributor, is ready for acquiring some more power generating resources.