The recent lifting of foreign ownership limits and introduction of the Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP) have led to a rapid growth in investments in the renewable energy (RE) sector.

In a media briefing, Security Bank Capital President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Virgilio O. Chua said that “what went well for this year is really the influx of project finance deals, particularly in the RE space.”

He noted that, “there are two factors that contributed to that. One is basically the lifting of the foreign national investment limit on RE projects. So now, foreigners can own 100 percent of RE projects. The second one is the introduction of the GEAP.”

Chua said these factors spurred a lot of interest in the RE space, and roughly half of SB Capital’s revenues this year will be accounted for by project finance, mostly in the RE projects space.

“In fact, year-to-date we’ve already completed about four [RE] project finance deals, with total aggregate capacity of about close to four gigawatts (GW) already. And we expect to close [for the rest of the year] with another four project finance deals, which will raise total [capacity] to about close to six GW,” he revealed.

SB Capital continues to be very bullish about RE investments well into next year. Chua said that “we are on track to meet the [Department of Energy or DOE’s] objective of hitting about 35-percent contribution mix of RE by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040.”

“We should end the year with about eight RE project financings. And, right now, we’re working on about four to six already, so that’s spilling over to next year.

“We’re practically meeting almost every big [RE] developer wanting to see if we can finance the project. So, that’s how bullish we are on that industry,” he added.