Ayala abandons Visayas biomass business to boost solar, wind power push

MANILA, Philippines — AC Energy Corp. is getting out of the biomass energy business in Visayas to focus more on expanding its solar and wind power operations.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange on Friday, the power unit of conglomerate Ayala Corp. said Negros Island Biomass Holdings Inc. (NIBH) is divesting its shares in three biomass-fired power plants in Visayas.

NIBH is a joint venture between the Ayalas and the Zabaleta Group. It co-owns the biomass power companies with Singapore’s ThomasLloyd CTI Asia Holdings Pte. Ltd. which, in turn, would now take over the three Visayas plants, namely the 20-megawatt San Carlos BioPower, 25MW North Negros BioPower and 25MW South Negros BioPower.

“The divestment of its indirect minority interest allows AC Energy to focus on the expansion of its core solar and wind businesses,” the company said.

“The acquisition by ThomasLloyd allows it to fully consolidate and further expand the biopower business, moving beyond just the power business and into complementary and ancillary businesses,” it added.

AC Energy has set a target of increasing its renewables portfolio to 5,000 MW by 2025 in a bid to become Southeast Asia’s largest renewables producer by that year. The company is eyeing key markets like Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, India and Myanmar for its clean energy dreams. 

At the same time, Ayala Group has an ambitious goal of abandoning all its investments in coal power by 2030. This target comes at a time the government is shunning proposals to construct new coal power plants and favoring renewables seen as a permanent solution to the Philippines’ power supply problems.

AC Energy earlier announced it would finance the construction of two new solar plants cumulatively worth P6.1 billion in Central Luzon that would generate a combined energy output of 150 megawatts (MW) by 2022. The company is also investing in wind power in Vietnam.

As of 11:48 a.m. on Friday, shares in AC Energy were trading up 1.59%, defying a downturn in the main index.