10 major players in the Philippine electricity sector — 2

This is a follow up piece to my earlier column, “10 major players in the Philippine electricity sector” (Jan. 8). I used data from the BusinessWorld Top 1000 Corporations in the Philippines 2024 report in the earlier story. Here, I have incorporated data from the 2025 report.

The top 10 major players in terms of their gross revenues (GR) in 2024 were the following.

1. Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), which remained the top electricity company in the country with P426 billion in GR. I think this includes the revenues of Meralco Power Gen (MGEN), MPower, and other Meralco subsidiaries. MGEN could be the fourth largest generation company (genco) in the country, at least it was in 2024.

2. National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) had a limited GR of P103 billion in 2022 to P113 billion in 2024, mainly because it has a maximum annual revenue (MAR) set by the Energy Regulatory Commission.

3. San Miguel Corp. (SMC) remained the largest conglomerate in power generation. South Premier Power Corp. (SPPC) or the Ilijan gas plant was the biggest genco in terms of GR in 2024. In 2025, Excellent Energy Resources, Inc. (EERI), along with SPPC, were co-owned by SMC with MGEN and Aboitiz Power (AP).

4. AP is the second largest power company having many gencos (Therma Luzon, Visayas, South/Mindanao), distribution companies (VECO, Davao Light), and the retail electricity supplier Adventenergy.

5. FirstGen was the third largest genco, at least until 2024. Its Energy Development Corp. (EDC) had a modest GR but huge net income, P34.3 billion total from 2022-2024, and this should be partly gravy from the feed-in tariff (FIT) subsidy of their huge wind plant. In 2025, FirstGen sold their gas plants to Prime Energy of Enrique Razon.

6. ACEN by Ayala could be the fifth largest genco after MGEN. ACEN had a big net income in 2023-2024, which could be partly gravy from their FIT subsidy for their wind and solar plants.

7. FDC Misamis by Filinvest Dev’t Corp. (FDC) of the Gotianun family has a rising GR and net income.

8. The National Power Corp. (Napocor) owns the big gensets in off-grid provinces and islands. It endures losses yearly. Napocor President Jericho Nograles has a big challenge on how to cut the loses, but big reforms could be outside Napocor’s power and mandate.

9. UC38 LLC, owned by Udenna/Dennis Uy, had a big net income from co-owning the Malampaya gas consortium.

10. Prime Energy by Enrique Razon, as another co-owner in the Malampaya consortium, had a total net income of P31 billion from 2022-2024, which is huge. Mr. Razon also owns several big distribution utilities in Iloilo, Bacolod, and other big cities.

The Visayas grid has the thinnest reserve margins compared to the Luzon and Mindanao grids, and thus experiences frequent yellow alerts. AP and MGEN both have coal plants in Cebu, which is the largest energy user in the Visayas grid. Without these big coal plants, Cebu would have daily “Earth Hours,” so the two companies are Cebu’s energy heroes. But their coal plants must expand and not be dismantled as climate activists are lobbying for.

Meanwhile, on the huge P24-billion fine imposed by the Department of Energy (DoE) on Solar Philippines for undelivered contracts — the SP New Energy Corp. (SPNEC) clarified that is not liable to pay the penalties. Of the 12,000 megawatts (MW) in terminated contracts by the DoE, only the 280-MW Sta. Rosa project is under SPNEC. The former management of the Sta. Rosa project was awarded 280 MW, then it filed a notice of force majeure with the DoE in 2025 citing reasons beyond its control for preventing it from completing the project.

Congressman Leandro Leviste should spend more time finding additional billions of pesos to settle his penalties with the DoE, and less on the flood control scandal as many agencies (the Ombudsman, the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, the Commission on Audit, the Senate, etc.) are already investigating the latter.