ACEN Corp.’s net income in the first half declined by 19 percent year-on-year to P2.2 billion, but 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.
“The Philippine business has returned to profitability as we start to recover from short-term headwinds experienced in the first quarter of the year,” said ACEN Chief Finance Officer and Treasurer Cora Dizon. “With fresh contributions from our newly operational solar and wind farms, ACEN continues to reap the returns of its aggressive expansion both within the country and abroad.”
During 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.
Consolidated revenues in January to June grew 19 percent to P16 billion, with higher spot market prices offsetting the impact of curtailment and customer buyout fees in the first quarter.
“We’re delighted to see the strong rebound in the second quarter, which helps generate momentum as the company sets out its bold ambition to reach 20 GW of renewables by 2030,” said ACEN President Eric Francia. “A significant part of this growth will be in the Philippines, and this is in line with the new government’s focus to aggressively expand the country’s renewables capacity.” ACEN has close to 4 GW of attributable capacity spread across 5 countries in the Asia Pacific region, of which 87 percent is renewable.
