Ayala-led ACEN Corporation has ramped up its renewable energy (RE) installations pipeline to 20,000 megawatts (20-gigawatt) over the next eight years or until 2030.
Labeling the new investment trajectory as the Ayala firm’s ‘bold aspiration’, it was emphasized that the investment growth plan will be a six-fold expansion from its current RE capacity of 3,400 megawatts.
It has to be noted that this new RE development target also climbed by 2,000MW from 18,000 megawatts (18 GW) that was announced by the company during its annual stockholders’ meeting in April.
Given the incessantly surging fuel prices in the world market, ACEN Chairman Fernando Zobel de Ayala indicated that “the world needs to accelerate the energy transition, and the country needs new capacity urgently.”
With the energy crisis at hand, Zobel said, “we believe that it is an opportune time for ACEN to set bold renewable targets for 2030, and help address the challenges that we are confronted with.”
According to the Ayala firm, it will continue with RE investment expansion in Vietnam, Indonesia and India; and will likewise augment its growth markets through strategic partnerships. The other core markets already entered by ACEN had been Australia and the United States.
In terms of technology build-up, ACEN stated that “solar and wind will remain as core energy technologies, complemented by investments in new technologies such as battery energy storage, floating solar, and offshore wind.”
However, the company has not given specific megawatts-breakdown yet per technology; and there are no details also on the scale of capital outlay to be funneled to the projects; as well as the percentage of development plan that it will pursue across markets.
ACEN, nevertheless, highlighted that “the Philippines will remain as the core market, which currently accounts for 40-percent of total capacity, and is expected to remain at this level,” entailing then that with the 20,000MW target, its scale of domestic RE investments could top 8,000MW.
Eric Francia, president and CEO of ACEN, reiterated that “the entire organization is committed to ACEN 2030, which is our vision to reach 20GW of renewables by 2030.” The company is currently at the process of concretizing its 2025 vision of 5,000MW RE installations.
The company executive echoed that their new investment blueprint “is an aggressive goal,” albeit he qualified “we believe that we have the right elements to succeed. We have a strong balance sheet, robust pipeline, strong partnerships, and a highly energized organization.”