Manila Electric Co. (MERALCO) will be scheduling another round of bidding for a 200-megawatt (MW) baseload power capacity sourced from renewable energy (RE) generating facilities.
In a report by the Manila Bulletin, the bidding will challenge the unsolicited proposal by Solar Philippines Batangas Baseload Corporation (SPBBC), a subsidiary of Solar Philippines.
The new auction date is scheduled on January 10, 2023, which is a follow-through of the failed October 25, 2022 competitive selection process (CSP) amid a lack of interested bidders.
The baseload capacity is targeted for delivery into MERALCO’s load network beginning in March 2024. Solar Philippines’ proposal involves the development of a 1,800 MW solar plant with a 1,000 megawatt-hour of battery storage across Batangas, Cavite, and Laguna.
The company offered a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and headline rate of Php 4.65 per kilowatt (kWh) for the round-the-clock provision of power supply to MERALCO.
Apart from the 200 MW CSP, MERALCO will also need to make a decision on the 500 MW mid-merit capacity offered by Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc. subsidiary Ahunan Power Inc.
The required capacity will be generated from two pumped storage hydro plants, one in Laguna which is under the pre-development stage, and the other is from the integrated hydropower component of its Wawa hydro project in the Rizal Province, also under the pre-development phase.
