MANILA – 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.

• READ: First Gen inaugurates San Gabriel, Avion natural gas plants

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.

"One of the major challenges faced by the electronics industry is the high cost of power, which is the 2nd worst in Asia. The additional 511 MW from these natural gas power plants is a welcome development for our Philippine electronics industry," said SEIPI President Dan Lachica.

First Gen and Meralco are among SEIPI's annual business partners.

In its report for the first semester of 2016, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said that electronic products remained the country’s top export, comprising 50.7 percent of total exports, valued at $13.604 billion.