ACEN budgets P72B to speed up Asia-Pacific

ACEN budgets P72B to speed up Asia-Pacific | Daily Tribune

ACEN Corp., the listed energy platform of the Ayala Group, is investing approximately P72 billion this year to accelerate its renewable energy expansion in Asia-Pacific, with the Philippines as its largest market.

During a press briefing held after the stockholders meeting on Wednesday, ACEN chief finance officer Jonathan Back announced that the company intends to allocate a significant portion of its resources, approximately P40 billion, to support its local operations.

The capital investments will be financed through a combination of debt and equity.

ACEN president and CEO Eric Francia, for his part, said the company has identified various assets that can be sold to generate additional equity if needed.

“We ended last year with cash in our balance sheet of just under P40 billion. That’s going to fund a lot of these capital expenditures plus additional financing mostly from bilateral loans,” Francia said.

Renewable energy portfolio

ACEN’s 2024 renewable energy portfolio includes 1,600 megawatts (MW) of projects spread across international and domestic markets.

Some of these projects are already generating power, while others are still under construction.

With a healthy pipeline of projects, ACEN is confident to hit its target of having a renewable energy portfolio of 5,000 MW by 2025.

Locally, new developments include the 385-megawatt San Marcelino solar power project and the 300-MW Palauig 2 solar project, both located in Zambales province as well as the 335-MW Isla wind project in the provinces of Laguna and Quezon.

“There’s probably gonna be another solar plant yet to be confirmed within the year,” Francia added.

In total, ACEN has around 4,800 MW of capacity in operations and under construction across the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, India and Indonesia.

ACEN aims to widen its renewable capacity to 20,000 MW by 2030 to help provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy to customers.

Its portfolio has grown steadily over the past year, with the addition of several new solar and wind farms.

These include the 60 MW Pangasinan Solar and 300 MW Palauig 2 Solar in the Philippines, the 38 MW Stockyard Wind in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the 600 MW Monsoon Wind in Sekong and Attapeu, Lao PDR, and the first phase of ACEN’s acquisition of SUPER Energy’s Solar NT platform in Vietnam.