First Gen going full steam on geothermal

MANILA, Philippines — Lopez-led First Gen Corp. is turning up the heat on its clean energy push with more geothermal power investments lined up for next year.

“The most important feature of our renewable energy platform and portfolio is the geothermal side. Next year, there’ll be more investments,” First Gen president and COO Francis Giles Puno said in an interview.

Puno said further investments would be used to upgrade the company’s decades-old geothermal facilities, aiming to boost efficiency and maximize available steam resources.

“Our plants have been in operation for the last 40 years,” he said, adding that newer facilities are being developed to beef up First Gen’s geothermal portfolio.

First Gen, through Energy Development Corp. (EDC), currently owns and operates 13 geothermal plants with a combined capacity of about 1,200 megawatts (MW).

These assets account for roughly 60 percent of the country’s geothermal capacity.

“Over the last two years, even up to this year, we’ve made significant investment in drilling as well as new capex (capital expenditure). So that’s all pretty much going to be completed by this year,” Puno said.

EDC has set aside around P18 billion for its drilling program this year ahead of its golden anniversary in 2026, a top company official earlier told The STAR.

Geothermal energy is a clean source of baseload supply or the minimum amount of electricity needed on the power grid to meet constant demand.

“Geothermal is an important resource. We need to work with the government, both the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission) and the DOE (Department of Energy), to find a way to support more geothermal to come in,” Puno said.

According to Puno, the primary challenge for developers arises during the exploration stage, as drilling wells does not guarantee viable results.

To address these uncertainties, the DOE is looking to secure about $250 million from the Asian Development Bank to roll out a geothermal de-risking strategy.

The initiative is designed to share the cost of exploration drilling with qualified developers to reduce their financial risk exposure.

The Philippines’ installed generating capacity stood at 1,952 MW as of 2023, latest DOE data showed.