Transforming Energy

Within you and without you: the final Chord

June 05, 2024

“Life flows on within you and without you,” sang the late great George Harrison in a Beatles song he wrote for the Sgt. Pepper’s album. With a chapter of my life coming to a close as I leave AboitizPower, looking back on my professional life — from being an Engineer to President and CEO — I’d like to think that those lyrics apply to me. The life of the business flowed within me in my various roles and it will continue without me. And that is a good thing.

A business that strives to be successful is future-oriented and has a planning horizon that extends beyond any single individual. This is certainly the case for AboitizPower, which — from top to bottom — has a deep bench of competent professionals ready to take the business to greater heights. Its strength is in its people. I believe that the culture of synergy and radical candor will continue to guide the incumbents and their future counterparts to greater success.

Having worked with him for 15+ years, I also know that my successor in AboitizPower, Mr. Danel Aboitiz, is more than ready to take the reins of President and CEO. With his deep industry and leadership experience, the Company will certainly move forward with confidence, especially as it nears the realization of its growth strategy of adding 3,700 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity by 2030. I wish him well.

As part of the electric power industry, it should never be lost to us that we are serving a higher purpose. We are responsible for shaping the Philippines’ energy transition, economy, and communities. Electricity must be reliable so that social and economic activities progress uninterrupted; affordable so that everyone can access it; and sustainable, or at the least cost to the environment, so that future generations can continue to enjoy its benefits. For AboitizPower, it all ties back to Transforming Energy for a Better World.

Through that lens, business longevity becomes important to all power companies. The energy transition spans generations and so can the life-cycle of generation and distribution facilities. Sustaining the business is important so that these facilities continue to run and receive sufficient support for future-proofing. As electricity demand rises along with economic growth, it is also up to private capital to invest in new capacities and emerging technologies to shore up much-needed supply, decarbonize, and improve overall services.

technologies do not operate in a vacuum — as well as more energy independence of end-users through net metering, mobile energy storage, Retail Competition and Open Access, and more. These should be underpinned by a strong system, requiring all aspects — from generation, transmission, to distribution — moving together at the same pace and intensity. I urge the industry to continue to work together towards better options for our fellow Filipinos.

We should also strive to look at things more holistically. The way we see challenges in the electric power industry should take into account the many other hurdles faced by society. For one thing, electricity generation from solar PV and hydropower will always be linked to agriculture as these compete for scarce resources like water and land. Here we have a sense that there are a lot of urgent concerns that need to be addressed at the same time; in this instance, an energy transition to cleaner, indigenous sources of energy and attaining greater food security. These are the kind of intertwined challenges in the short- and long-term that we need answers to.

To end, I wish to say thank you to those who followed this column. I can only hope that I was able to strike a chord and show that we are all a part of something bigger than ourselves. We should press on to discuss, debate, and deliberate so that our decisions — be it regarding the country’s energy transition or any other issue — are more informed and, hopefully, more correct. Let us continue to think about our future and, in the present, take action whenever and wherever we can.

Chords is the monthly column of Emmanuel V. Rubio — biker, music lover, and President and CEO of AboitizPower. It references his passion for playing the guitar and how the combination of notes & the subtleties of strumming produce unique melodies when the sounds of individual strings are blended together, much like the elements of industry, corporations, and life.