Following last month’s commercial operation of the 72-megawatt Arayat-Mexico solar farm project, the joint venture of Ayala-led ACEN Corporation and Citicore Renewable Energy Corporation (CREC), will now advance on the implementation of their 44MW project expansion in that facility.
The targeted commissioning of the expanded plant will be by third quarter next year – and once that is completed, the total capacity of the solar farm would be 116MW.
In a statement to the media, ACEN indicated that “the additional capacity helps accelerate the energy transition as ACEN targets to achieve 20 GW (gigawatts) of attributable renewables capacity by 2030.”
The Ayala firm, so far, is the genuine serious investor which has been able to concretize its massive scale renewable energy (RE) projects from blueprint to tangible facilities that generate electricity – and that has been its main differentiating factor versus other players who are still busy beefing up business plans but projects had not actually been taking off from the drawing board.
And since the electricity generation of solar farm installations often peak during summer months, ACEN qualified that the capacity of the Arayat-Mexico solar facility will come as “a critical addition to the grid, where the energy industry is taking significant steps to ensure a reliable power supply.”
During the construction phase of this P2.9 billion solar project, it was able to generate 1,500 job opportunities – especially within its host community in Pampanga; and that had been a valuable development given the job losses wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to Jose Maria Zabaleta, chief development officer of ACEN, “the project was funded through a debt replacement and shall be refinanced with at least 40-percent equity and up to 60-percent bank debt.”
Oliver Tan, president and CEO of CREC further noted “Citicore’s engineering excellence and end-to-end project development capabilities, from construction to commissioning, enabled a fast turnaround time for the completion of this maiden joint venture project with ACEN.”
He added “with our aligned goals in providing renewable energy alternatives, we believe that our succeeding collaborations will empower us to move faster towards a sustainable and carbon-neutral future.”
On numbers crunched by the company, it was estimated that the aggregate generation of the solar plant would hover at 105 gigawatt-hours (GWh); and it could provide the electricity needs of more than 45,000 homes.
Additionally, the project sponsor-firm stated that the facility could help “avoid an estimated 72,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.”
Zabaleta asserted “we give importance to our commitment to create positive, tangible and long-term value in the communities where we operate.”