AC Energy looking at more renewable energy ventures

MANILA, Philippines — AC Energy Inc., the power business of Ayala Corp., is eyeing more renewable energy ventures overseas  to meet its target of 1,000 megawatts (MW) of RE projects by 2020, its top official said.

Bulk of the company’s RE capacity expansion is directed towards overseas developments, AC Energy president and CEO Eric Francia said on the sidelines of the Confederation of Solar Developers of the Philippines (CSDP) induction ceremony on Monday night.

“With our aspirations, it’s gonna be hard to scale up focusing on the Philippines alone, given the situation where we are in where there is still oversupply in the next couple of years,” he said.

AC Energy plans to scale up its renewable energy portfolio to 1,000 MW by 2020. It currently has a capacity of 300 MW for renewable energy.

Of the target, 70 percent may come  from abroad, while the remaining 30 percent will remain at home.

AC Energy has RE investments in Indonesia, which include the 75-MW wind farm project in South Sulawesi which is in partnership with UPC Renewables Indonesia Ltd.

It also has a 20 percent stake in Star Energy (Salak-Darajat) B.V., which acquired Chevron’s 637 MW of steam and power from the Darajat and Salak geothermal fields in West Java.

“Our Indonesia RE alone is already bigger than Philippine RE because of geothermal,” Francia said.

AC Energy also has RE prospects in Vietnam and Australia.

“We are going to add Vietnam soon and we already have 30 MW, but in the next few weeks, we do expect to reach financial closure for solar in Vietnam. Expect us to make a lot of progress and announcements in the next few weeks,” Francia said, noting the country has a June deadline for feed-in tariff (FIT) for solar.

“If you add Vietnam, and hopefully Australia will follow soon next year in terms of financial close, then you can really see those international numbers moving up,” he said.

Despite the aggressive push overseas, AC Energy still remains positive on the long-term prospects of RE at home.

“If we want to continue to grow and balance our thermal and renewables, we need to really go international, but we are still very bullish for RE in the Philippines but perhaps it will take five to 10 years,” Francia said.

“We need to plant the seeds first because it takes time to convert the land, for NGCP to strengthen its network, etc. All of this will take time so it’s good to complement our growth with international ventures,” he said.

Moving forward, Francia said the company is hopeful to do around 100 MW of RE projects.

RE investments will be bankrolled by proceeds from the sale of AC Energy’s $2-billion thermal platform, which was announced last May.

AC Energy’s  thermal business consists of investments in a 2x122-MW coal-fired power plant under South Luzon Thermal Corp., a 2x316-MW coal fired-power plant under GNPower Mariveles, a 2x668-MW supercritical coal-fired power plant under GNPower Dinginin, and a 4x138-MW coal-fired power plant under GNPower Kauswagan.