ACEN makes available $25 million facility for micro grids

MANILA, Philippines — ACEN Corp., through subsidiary ACEN Renewables International Pte. Ltd. (ACRI), has made available a $25 million facility to fund micro grid projects for telecommunications towers.

ACEN, in a stock exchange filing, said its executive committee authorized the company and ACRI to enter into an agreement with Yoma Strategic Holdings and its wholly owned subsidiary, Yoma Strategic Investments Ltd. (YSIL), to restructure the latter’s outstanding loan with ACRI.

Under the restructure agreement, ACEN said YSIL would purchase the loan from ACRI, payable within a 10-year period, with a Yoma parent guarantee.

According to ACEN, ACRI made available a $25 million facility to YSIL to fund the rollout of the micro grids for telecommunications towers by Yoma Micro Power Pte. Ltd. (YMPS), Yoma’s joint venture with Norfund, IFC, and the YMPS founder.

ACEN in July secured the approval of its executive committee for a proposed joint venture with Norfund and investment into YMP Telecom Power Inc. for the provision of sustainable and affordable telecom tower solarization solutions in the country.

The joint venture between the company and Norfund is aimed to fund projects of Yoma Micro Power (YMP) in the Philippines.

YMP is a Southeast Asia-focused distributed renewable energy company that powers more than 600 telecom towers with reliable and cost effective renewable energy.

Its investors include Myanmar conglomerate Yoma Group, Norfund, IFC and company founder Alakesh Chetia.

In 2019, ACEN signed a binding term sheet with Singapore-based Yoma Strategic Holdings to form a joint venture firm that will invest in YMP.

ACEN, the listed energy platform of the Ayala Group, is working toward being the largest listed renewables platform in Southeast Asia, with a goal of reaching 20 gigawatts of renewables capacity by 2030.

The company currently has about 4,500 MW of attributable capacity from owned facilities in the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia and India, with a renewable share of 98 percent.

It is also committed to transition the company’s generation portfolio to 100 percent renewable energy by 2025 and to become a net zero greenhouse gas emissions company by 2050.