Output of new RE projects to hit nearly 1.6GW–ACEN

ACEN Corp. is expecting 1.6 gigawatts (GW), or 1,600 megawatts (MW), of new renewable energy (RE) projects to deliver close to fullyear output this year.

ACEN President Eric Francia said the projected total investment for these new projects is about $1.6 billion.

“In India, we have 400 megawatts. In Australia, we have 500 megawatts and the balance is in the Philippines,” Francia said during a media briefing after the company’s stockholders’ meeting on Wednesday.

Overseas, Australia is ACEN’S largest market, comprising around 20 percent of the company’s generation portfolio capacity.

ACEN successfully commenced operations of its first project in Australia, the 521 MW New England Solar farm, one of the largest solar farms in Australia. Construction progress is also underway for the 520 MW Stubbo solar farm, which is around halfway to completion.

ACEN is also present in Vietnam but according to Patrice Clausse, CEO of ACEN International, the forwardlooking policies in Vietnam are “not very clear.”

“The framework is not in place,” he said, adding that “the beauty of market in Philippines and Australia is you do not have to rely on just one offtaker.”

With 1.6GW of renewables that will be completed this year, ACEN’S RE portfolio is expected to reach “close to six gigawatts,” Francia said. “We are effectively five gigawatts now. We are close to 6 GW even this year. We do expect a lot of pending transactions to close this year, if all of those will be converted.”

The power business of conglomerate Ayala Corp. has set an ambitious target of reaching 20 GW of RE capacity by 2030. Including the 1.6GW, the company’s total portfolio will reach 4.7GW, of which 1.9GW are in the Philippines. Francia said these are already operating or are under construction.

ACEN may spend $15 billion more to fully achieve its 20GW target by 2030. For this year, the company’s capital expenditure (capex) may reach P72 billion.

“The Philippines gets the bigger chunk, over P40 billion for the Philippines. We ended last year a balance sheet of just under P40 billion so obviously that’s going to fund those capex, plus additional financing, mostly from bilateral loans,” said Francia.

In addition to scaling up renewables, the company is also pioneering efforts in early coal retirement.

At the COP28 in Dubai last December 2023, ACEN, together with the Rockefeller Foundation’s Coal to Clean Credit Initiative (CCCI) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), announced a collaboration to implement the world’s first coalto-clean credit pilot project.

The initiative will help road test the new methodology being developed by CCCI, and hopefully jumpstart the market for transition credits. Transition credits are high-integrity carbon credits that are granted to projects that enable the early retirement of coal plants and their replacement with clean energy, while ensuring a just transition.

This initiative complements ACEN’S Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM) for the 246 MW SLTEC coal plant, which targets a retirement date of 2040 or after 25 years of plant operations. The transition credit initiative will potentially accelerate the transition of coal to cleaner technology by 10 years or as early as 2030.

If successful, ACEN said this can be scaled up and replicated by other coal fired power plants, not only in the Philippines but also across the globe.