Billionaire Ramon Ang controls San Miguel and is ramping up its investments in solar farms and other renewable energy options as it drops coal projects from its expansion plans to help the Philippines reduce its carbon footprint.
The Philippines heavily rely on fossil fuels, with almost 58.2 gigawatts hours of electricity produced in 2020 coming from coal power plants, government data revealed. That’s more than half of the total electricity production last year in the country. The data also showed that just 21% of the country’s electricity came from renewable energy sources.
“Our sustainability journey has reached a significant milestone,” Ang, president of San Miguel, said in a Facebook post. “Recently, we t the big step of dropping new coal projects from our expansion plans. Instead, we are ramping up our renewable power capacities. This has not been easy as our country still depends much on reliable and affordable traditional power sources.”
