Ayala-led ACEN Corporation is ramping up its renewable energy (RE) portfolio investments portfolio target across Asian markets to 18,000 megawatts (MW), a mammoth 13,000MW expansion from its original development plan of 5,000MW through year 2025, making it the biggest capacity build-up by a power industry player in the country.
During the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting, ACEN Chairman Fernando Zobel de Ayala announced that the firm has increased its pipeline to 18,000 megawatts, putting it in a position to aggressively expand its renewable investments.
He further indicated that the capacity installation expansion had been initially earmarked with P55 billion capital spending to be funneled across investments in the region. By far, the new project pipeline of ACEN will be the biggest portfolio buildup being cast by a power industry player in the Philippines.
For the blueprinted capacity installations, it was emphasized that the bulk at 8,100MW will be developed in Australia; followed by the Ayala firm’s home market in the Philippines with 6,500MW capacity expansion; then 1,600MW will be pursued in Vietnam; and around 1,800MW will be developed in India and other markets.
When it comes to the ongoing RE ventures of the company, Zobel highlighted “the Philippines remains our core market – accounting for 40-percent of our capacity, while 60-percent coming from international markets which include Indonesia, Vietnam, India and Australia.”
He added “we remain bullish with ACEN’s renewable growth strategy, and believe that there will be sustained growth in renewable energy demand, as the world accelerates its transition to cleaner sources of power.”
For RE development prospects in the Philippines, ACEN President and CEO Eric T. Francia noted the company is seeing potential in helping shore up power capacity for the country as it straddles new episode of strained supply predicaments.
“The market is currently experiencing a tight supply situation as demand has surpassed pre-pandemic levels,” the ACEN executive stressed.
Onward to concretizing the preliminary 5,000MW pipeline of RE developments by the company, Francia qualified that for the Philippines alone, ACEN “started the construction of over 500MW worth of projects in 2021 – including the 283MW San Marcelino solar farm in Zambales and the 160MW Pagudpud wind farm in Ilocos Norte.”
In addition, the Ayala firm had reached 1,000MW of RE project developments in Vietnam while it is also advancing the construction of its 520MW-peak New England solar farm installation in Australia.
“We expect to continue our expansion in these markets and add new ones over time. The company is also beginning to diversify into new technologies,” Francia asserted.
To date, Zobel conveyed that the energy firm of the Ayala group already has “3,800MW of attributable capacity – both in the Philippines and internationally.” He emphasized that 3,330MW of such capacity had been anchored on RE technologies, primarily solar, wind and geothermal energy.