ACEN Australian unit inks loan deal

BY LENIE LECTURA – SEPTEMBER 16, 2022
from Business Mirror

ACEN Corp. subsidiary ACEN Australia and MUFG Bank Ltd. executed a facility agreement for a A$140-million green long-term loan.

The loan facility was finalized on September 15.

Also, MUFG and ACEN Australia entered into an Accession Letter to include MUFG as a lender under the common provisions agreement signed last August 18 with ACEN Australia and DBS Bank Ltd., Australia Branch and the company as guarantor to ACEN Australia.

Last month, ACEN signed a similar loan facility with DBS in the amount of A$100 million. DBS is the sole arranger and sustainability advisor for the green long-term revolving loan facility.

This is part of ACEN’s goal of raising over A$600 million to support the development of its projects in Australia.

“We are committed to growing ACEN’s renewables platform backed by our vision to reach 20 gigawatts (GW) of renewables by 2030,” ACEN International COO Patrice Clausse said.

The company currently has 18 GW of pipeline across the region, which will help achieve its 2030 goals.

Last month, ACEN reported that its net income in the first half fell by 19 percent year-on-year to P2.2 billion. Despite this, the company said it is optimistic about its prospects for the year after its income rebounded in the second quarter.

The listed energy platform of the Ayala Group returned to profitability in the second quarter, when its income rose by 25 percent year-on-year to P1.8 billion.

In the first quarter, ACEN booked a 68-percent decline in net income to P405 million because of higher purchased power from the spot market, extended plant outages, and natural disasters.

For the second quarter, the company realized fresh contribution from new Philippine and international plants, as well as the easing of curtailment issues in the Visayas. Also, improvements in plant availability allowed ACEN some excess capacity, thus enabling the company to benefit from strong wholesale electricity prices during the quarter.

Attributable output in the first half of 2022 grew 11 percent to 2,482 gigawatt hours (GWh), driven by increased operating capacity from the company’s wind farms in Vietnam and solar plants in India, which offset the impact of thermal outages in the first quarter. Driving the rise in generation were the international plants, which produced 1,268 GWh in the first half, up 48 percent year-on-year.

Output from renewable energy plants reached 1,692 GWh, registering a 52 percent growth from the same period in 2021.