A consortium led by a unit of Aboitiz Equity Ventures—controlled by tycoon Sabin Aboitiz and his family—submitted the highest bid of 36.3 billion pesos ($642 million) for a government-owned hydro power facility.
Led by Aboitiz Renewables, the Thunder Consortium—which includes Japanese companies Sumitomo Corp. and Electric Power Development—edged the 19.6-billion-pesos offer of First Gen Prime Energy and its partner Korea Water Resources Corp., the only other qualified bidder for the 728-megawatt power facility, the Power Sector Assets & Liabilities Management Corp., a government agency in charge of divesting assets of state-owned National Power Corp., said on Friday.
“The Thunder Consortium will undergo a rigorous post-qualification process to verify the accuracy and authenticity of the eligibility documents submitted,” the state agency said.
The Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan hydroelectric plant, which straddles three towns in Laguna province, south of Manila, is one of the government’s oldest power facilities. It’s currently operated by CBK Power Company, which is jointly owned by Aboitiz’s Japanese partners, under a build, rehabilitate, operate and transfer contract with the government that expires in February 2026.
Aboitiz Power, parent of Aboitiz Renewables, and other Philippine energy companies, including the Lopez family’s First Gen, are bulking up on clean energy assets amid a push by government to increase the share of renewables in the nation’s electricity production energy mix from 21% last year to 50% by 2040.
Aboitiz Equity CEO Sabin Aboitiz said in an interview with Forbes Asia in 2023 that the group is spending 190 billion pesos this decade in renewable energy to more than double its installed electricity generation capacity to 9.2 gigawatts by 2030. The group will accelerate the construction of geothermal, solar, wind and hydro power stations to achieve its goal of sourcing half of its electricity output from renewable sources by 2030, he said then.
Aboitiz Equity is one of the leading Philippine conglomerates with interests in power, banking and financial services, food, and real estate. Sabin and his family have an estimated net worth of $2.2 billion, placing them at No. 10 in the Forbes Asia list of the Philippines’ 50 Richest that was published in August 2024.
