Metro Pacific Investments Corp. plans to transfer its planned waste-to-energy (WTE) projects to Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen) to fast-track their development.
“I am thinking to transfer it [WTE] from MPIC to Meralco. Maybe, we would move quicker. Maybe that is better [if] we form a unit. You have to form within MGen and you have to be closely involved with LGU [local government unit],” MPIC chairman Manuel Pangilinan said.
MGen is the power arm of Meralco, the country’s biggest power distributor.
“We have been there for many years and to be fair to MPIC, the LGUs have a lot of problems,” Pangilinan said.
He said WTE projects needed support from LGUs as this would address waste/sanitation issues.
“If you want scale, you need the cooperation of several cities. We have several cities already, the biggest is Quezon City,” Pangilinan said.
MPIC proposed a P22-billion WTE in Payatas, Quezon City that will convert up to 3,000 metric tons of municipal waste into electricity each day through a power plant with 36 megawatts of installed capacity.
MPIC officials said in 2019 the local government of Quezon City did not receive other offers challenging the consortium’s proposal and was expecting the project to be awarded to the group.
Aside from the pending WTE project in Quezon City, MPIC through Metro Pacific Water proposed a P2.3-billion project in Iloilo City which has yet to be approved by the LGU.
