GEOTHERMAL company Energy Development Corp. (EDC), a subsidiary of listed renewable energy (RE) firm First Gen Corp., said Monday that it was planning to spend about $1 billion (approximately P56.8 billion) over the next three years to drill more geothermal wells to expand capacity.
This was announced by EDC Vice Chairman and CEO Francis Giles Puno during the eco-business event, "Zeroing In on Net Zero: From Corporate Pledges to Action," on Monday at the Marco Polo Hotel Ortigas in Pasig City.
"Over the next three years, we will go through a campaign to make sure that geothermal energy is indeed sustainable," Puno said during a panel discussion.
"So our main focus during this time will be to make sure that we can deliver the amount of renewable source of geothermal for our customers, and part of that is a need to drill close to around 40 wells for that time period," he added.
The initiative aims to ensure the company can deliver more baseload renewable energy to customers.
"[This] means an investment of a half a billion dollars just to make sure that we can continue to extract sustainable steam from the ground," Puno said.
"In addition to this maintenance capital expenditure, we have also earmarked half a billion dollars for the expansion of our geothermal output as well."
In an interview with reporters following the panel discussion, Puno said that the new wells would mostly be located in Leyte, the Bacon-Manito (BacMan) area near Sorsogon and Albay, and near Mount Apo in Davao.
"All of this is for the continued operations of Energy Development Corporation and, on top of that, for our growth as well," he added.
