Two new plants in Batangas generate clean energy that can lower the bills of Manila Electric Company Meralco subscribers and in turn help grow the manufacturing industry, an electronics group said Friday.

Two facilities in Santa Rita, a 414-megawatt MW San Gabriel combined-cycle plant and a 97-MW Avion open cycle natural gas-fired plant, were inaugurated by First Gen, a Lopez Group company, earlier this month.

First Gen operates the plants through wholly-owned subsidiaries First Natgas Power Corp. for the San Gabriel plant and Prime Meridian Powergen Corp. for the Avion facility.

In a statement, the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries Foundation, Inc. SEIPI said the plants provide “much needed additional generating capacity to the Luzon grid.” They also will create more competition, “not just among power plants, but also among fuels” as July data from Meralco said that natural gas can be a cheaper source of power, SEIPI said.

Read more here.