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Brix Lelis - The Philippine Star
December 5, 2025 | 12:00am
“We’re making preparations to be able to participate in a CSP (competitive selection process) by January or participate in a baseload capacity auction,” MGEN president and CEO Emmanuel Rubio said in an interview.
Steve Buissinne via Pixabay
MANILA, Philippines — Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGEN) is gearing up to join competitive bidding early next year to secure a ready market for its 1,200-megawatt coal-fired facility in Atimonan, Quezon.
“We’re making preparations to be able to participate in a CSP (competitive selection process) by January or participate in a baseload capacity auction,” MGEN president and CEO Emmanuel Rubio said in an interview.
Rubio said the company was closely coordinating with the Department of Energy (DOE) to determine the “best way to actually get this capacity in.”
With a project of this scale, MGEN aims to secure off-take deals to guarantee revenue certainty and support the long-term viability of the facility.
In the power sector, an offtake agreement is a contract in which a buyer commits to purchasing all or a portion of a generation company’s output. Such deals ensure a ready market for facilities like coal plants.
CSP, meanwhile, is a government-mandated bidding mechanism that requires distribution utilities and electric cooperatives to procure their power supply from generation firms offering the most cost-effective rates.
“We’re expecting that the delivery of this unit is February 2030,” Rubio said.
MGEN, the power generation arm of tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan’s Manila Electric Co., earlier received confirmation from the DOE that the Atimonan project is not covered by the existing coal moratorium.
While the ban prohibits the processing of new coal facilities, the DOE has clarified that the policy does not cover projects that are already committed.
“The condition is that by 2050, the plant should be able to fire an alternative fuel. We accepted. Whether we shut down or consider a new fuel is something that we have already considered in our investment,” Rubio said.
Coal facilities like the Atimonan project are regarded as reliable sources of baseload power due to their capacity to operate continuously.
