Spanish firm Acciona seeking opportunities in clean energy, infrastructure sector

The Philippines is a priority area for Spanish firm Acciona S.A. as it seeks more opportunities in the clean energy and infrastructure sectors in 2019 given the country’s great requirements for power and infrastructure developments, company officials said.

The company is looking in both infrastructure and energy spaces as it hopes to secure projects by next year, Ruben Camba, country director at Acciona Construcción for Singapore and Southeast Asia, said in an interview over the weekend.

“We have been awarded projects of water and transportation and hopefully, when the time comes, we will have the opportunity to develop in the energy space,” he said.

Acciona put up its Southeast Asian office 2.5 years ago and has chosen the Philippines as its priority market in the region given its cost of energy.

The company hopes to put up its first regional green project in the Philippines by next year, Jorge Gayoso Mediero, head of business development at Acciona Energy for Southeast Asia and Iran, said.

“Why the Philippines? Because the price of energy here is high which means that we have a chance to compete and offer better prices with renewable energy,” he said.

“Hopefully, for the next year, we should open subsidiary and hire more people here. We are not going to be EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractors here. We will come as investors of the plant with a local partner. We are considering local constructors,” Gayoso Mediero said.

The latest report of Australia-based International Energy Consultants said the average power rates of Manila Electric Co., the country’s largest power distributor, has gone down since it started its study six years ago, but has remained as the third highest in Asia this year.

But in Asia Pacific, the Philippines has moved to the sixth spot this year from the fourth spot in 2016.

A recent survey by Pulse Asia Research also showed 60 percent of Filipino adults are dissatisfied with the current prices of electricity in the country.

In the infrastructure sector, Acciona is looking to bag more project developments next year after having been awarded with two contracts.

The Spanish firm is looking at major projects in Metro Manila, in particular.

“There’s a need for transportation. There’s a need for basically metro airport, bridges, communication and to ease the traffic in Manila, also in Cebu,” Camba said.

“It is something the Philippines needs. The Philippines government is pushing for the Build Build Build (BBB) program and we are going to participate in projects that are part of the BBB program,” he said.