Aboitiz Power Corp. expects to complete several energy projects in 2024 that will support economic growth in the near term, a top executive said Thursday.
Newly-appointed AboitizPower chief financial officer Juan Alejandro Aboitiz several projects are lined up for completion in 2024.
“We started delivering energy to the grid from our 94-megawatt [peak] Cayanga power station — which is a solar plant in Pangasinan — and, in 2024, we’re expecting our 159-megawatt [peak] Laoag solar plant to start delivering to the grid, which is in Pangasinan as well,” Aboitiz said in a TV interview.
He said another 24-megawatt battery energy storage project in Magat, together with AboitizPower partner Scatec, would also start delivering power next year.
“We are on track to delivering our growth aspirations, and obviously if there are opportunities to build more RE [renewable energy] such as wind for example, that’s something that we’re always looking to do,” Aboitiz said.
AboitizPower aims to double its net attributable sellable capacity to 9,200 megawatts MW with 50:50 split between RE and thermal capacities over the next decade.
The company identified close to 1,000 MW of RE projects, which also include the 17-MW geothermal binary plant in Tiwi, Albay.
“We’re approaching the transition in a very balanced way. Philippine energy demand continues to grow with the economy every year. As we continue to build RE, we also have to ensure that there is sufficient baseload capacity,” Aboitiz said.
He said the transmission networks should manage more variability in the grid because of the entry of more RE projects.
“Given that more end-users are building more solar rooftop, we will eventually have batteries on the demand-side. The [transmission] networks also have to be able to handle this two-way power flow,” he said.
AboitizPower’s net income in the first nine months climbed 37 percent year-on-year to P26.7 billion on higher power generation availability across its diverse portfolio, higher sales volume from its retail segment and higher sales volume across its distribution utilities segment.
“[It] is a testament to our team’s ability to manage the increasing operational and market complexity of the industry, and that gives us a lot of confidence as we head into 2024 and beyond,” Aboitiz said.
“We feel that we are in a good position to support the grid by keeping the availability of our [power] plants high and our costs down because we want to ensure that we’re minimizing the impact on the end-consumer as much as possible,” he said.