Similar to its 165-MW Casecnan Power Plant which it took over in February last year, First Gen said any hydro asset is going to be ‘a nice complement to geothermal, to solar and wind.’
First Gen now has 3,668 MW of installed capacity in its portfolio of plants that run on natural gas, geothermal, hydro, wind, and solar, which approximately accounts for 18 percent of the country’s gross generation. It is expanding its portfolio to 13,000 MW by 2030.
‘If you look at what we’ve been doing, Casecnan came up, we looked into it. CBK [Caliraya-Botocan-Kalyaan] came up, we looked into it.We need the right mix of technologies. I think to support all the solar that’s coming up, we need balancing technologies. And hydro is a great balancing technology,’ said Soriano.
The company is also open to rehabilitating Agus-Pulangi, similar to the improvements it had done with CBK.
‘When we took over Casecnan we didn’t leave it untouched. There had to be some changes. We had to make certain upgrades, based on our knowledge. And I think that’s the kind of perspective, regardless of what’s up there for bidding. We will look into it. We will consider it as is there room to upgrade? Is there room to make something really good even better? That’s always a healthy perspective to take,’ added the First Gen official.
Last month, the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) said it plans to raise anywhere from P40 billion to as much as P90 billion from the sale of the Agus-Pulangi hydroelectric complex.
‘It can be as low as P40 billion to as high as P90 billion, but again, aggressive numbers,’ said PSALM President PSALM President Dennis Dela Serna during last week’s public hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance. ‘The concession of the Agusun-Pulangi complex, we hope to be also successful within the term of (President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.).’
If the planned privatization is successful, the amount will help reduce PSALM’s financial obligations which stood at P259.38 billion as of end-August this year.
PSALM was created under Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001, to lead the privatization of generation and transmission assets of the National Power Corporation.