Mitsubishi Joins S'pore Firms in Climate Plan to Close Coal Plant in Philippines Early

Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Corporation on May 7 joined Singapore's Keppel and investment platform GenZero in a climate initiative that aims to retire a Philippine coal plant early using funds from a new type of carbon credit backed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

- David Fogarty

The initiative, if successful, could be a model used to shut down dozens of other coal plants early around the globe, especially in Asia, which is heavily reliant on the polluting fuel.

The aim is to retire a 246-megawatt (MW) coal plant in Batangas province, South Luzon, by 2030—ahead of its scheduled closure in 2040—and replace it with renewable energy and battery storage.

Shutting it down a decade early could save 19 million tonnes of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions and cut local air pollution.

The catch is that closing the plant early is costly. Replacing it with green power generation and new power lines, as well as compensation for the lost 10 years of electricity income, would cost over US$1 billion (S$1.29 billion), said Mr Eric Francia, president and chief executive of the plant's owner Acen, which is the listed energy platform of Ayala Group.

"We're still finalising the numbers; we're talking about US$1.5 billion-plus overall cost," he told The Straits Times at the GenZero Climate Summit 2025, being held from May 5 to 8 at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre.

Fully replacing the coal plant with the same level of on-demand power would require 1,000MW of solar, 250MW of wind, and 1,000MW of battery energy storage, according to The Rockefeller Foundation, which is also involved in the project.

To help share the cost, Acen in 2024 teamed up with Temasek-owned GenZero and Keppel as equity partners.

On May 7, Mitsubishi and its power generation subsidiary Diamond Generating Asia joined as the new collaborators—the hope is that, with Mitsubishi joining, the credits might eventually be able to be used in Japan's emissions trading scheme. The partners want to pioneer the use of transition credits to help fund the shutdown of the Acen plant.