The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is assessing the practicality of using modular power reactors and currently works with the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp., an American company, in a pre-feasibility study.
According to Meralco chairman and chief executive officer Manuel V. Pangilinan, the hope is the the pre-feasibility study to “lead to full blown feasibility study which we would like to share with the government and the participants of the industry itself.”
At the Giga Summit he hosted in Makati City on Monday, Pangilinan said the feasibility study will help determine the cost of the project and whether or not the modular nuclear reactors (MNRs) are appropriate for the Philippines.
Pangilinan said Ultra Safe owns MNRs capable of generating 5 up to 15 megawatts (MW) of power.
Such, he said, are apt for island province settings to power hyperscale data centers and water desalination plants.
The Meralco Power Academy also launched its Filipino Scholars and Interns on Nuclear Engineering (FISSION) program seeking to develop skilled professionals and advance the integration of nuclear power in the country’s energy portfolio.
Pangilinan said Meralco will invest in local talents and support aspiring Filipino nuclear engineers to help accelerate the development of the country’s technical and regulatory talent pool through education and training in the highly specialized field of nuclear engineering.
“Meralco will send some of our engineers to a two-year graduate program targeting local talents who are graduates and practicing Mechanical, Electrical, Material Engineering, and related areas in universities in the US, in Canada, Korea, Japan, France,” Pangilinan said.
One of the program’s objectives is to identify gaps that could impede the government’s transformative initiatives such as the absence of expert safety regulators and technical professionals capable of operating nuclear technologies, specifically the small modular reactors and micro modular reactors.
Scheduled to run from 2025 to 2027, the two-year graduate program will be offered to graduates and practitioners in the fields of mechanical, electrical, materials and metallurgical engineering, physics and other related disciplines.
Meralco is eyeing top global engineering universities as the University of California in Berkeley, the University of Illinois, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Université Paris–Saclay for the program.
Upon completion of the graduate and internship programs, Meralco will implement a re-entry action plan to facilitate the scholars’ return to the Philippines in 2029. They are expected to render their expertise to the company and to the Philippine government.
He said applications for the program’s pilot batch will open next year with the qualification and other details announced later this year.
Meralco’s power generation subsidiaries Meralco PowerGen Corp. and Global Business Power Corp. total over 2,400 MW using coal, liquified natural gas, diesel and solar technology.
