Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen) subsidiary, PacificLight, is planning a power plant in Indonesia whose output will supply Singapore.
Jaime Azurin, MGen president and chief executive officer, told reporters the facility will likely be a hybrid solar-battery power plant connected via an undersea cable.
“Singapore, there’s not much land there while there is so much land on the Indonesian side and there are many islands. Hopefully, we will get the export permit from the Indonesian government. It is just very meticulous because you are passing through cross-border,” Azurin explained.
According to him, laying down the cable to Singapore is fraught with issues like whose jurisdiction prevails.
“We have been trying to develop that for the past years and hopefully within the year, something will come out of it,” Azurin said.
PacificLight is owned by FPM Power Holdings (Singapore) Ltd. which is a joint venture between First Pacific Co. Ltd. and MGen.
MGen said the project will also be in partnership with an Indonesian company to secure licensing and likely have a capacity of not less than 300 megawatts (MW) to justify the high investment cost for the undersea cable.
“We still don’t know (the investment cost). The most difficult part is the permit from the Indonesian government to export because not all governments would agree to export their power,” Azurin added.
At present, Meralco’s overall power generation capacity through MGen and Global Business Power Corp. is over 2,400 MW using coal, liquified natural gas, diesel and solar technologies.
