ACEN may hike capex budget for 2025–exec
By Lenie Lectura – December 23, 2024
from Business Mirror
ACEN Corp. said its capital expenditures (capex) for 2025 could increase to P70 billion from this year’s P50 billion.
“We are forecasting P50 billion in capex across all geographies for fiscal year 2024. In 2025, we expect to spend roughly P70 billion,” said ACEN President and CEO Eric Francia.
The amount will be used to achieve its goal of having 20 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy (RE) capacity by 2030.
ACEN intends to operationalize several power projects with a total capacity of 1.2GW by end of next year. It currently has 6.8 GW of attributable RE capacity spanning operational, under-construction, and committed projects. Of which, 1.2GW of various RE projects will be operational soon.
Of the 6.8GW, 45 percent are operating, 34 percent are under construction and the rest are under the committed project list.
Among the big-ticket energy projects expected to be completed in 2025 is the 520-megawatt (MW) Stubbo Solar in New South Wales, Australia, through its subsidiary ACEN Australia. The other projects lined up to be switched on next year are the 146 MW Monsoon Wind project in Laos, the 123-MW hybrid solar and wind project in India, and the 109-MW Stockyard Wind project in Texas, United States.
ACEN is the publicly listed energy platform of the Ayala Group with a rapidly growing presence across the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, and the United States.
The company last week announced it bagged a contract to construct a 936 MW wind power project in New South Wales, Australia.
“That’s the Valley of the Winds project in New South Wales. The Australian government actually bid out capacity contracts to enable renewables,” Francia said.
The Valley of the Winds project is among the 19 projects selected as part of a national tender process for Australia’s Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS), which ensures enough new affordable and reliable electricity will be brought into the grid to meet demand between now and 2030.
Valley of the Winds is the biggest project awarded a CIS to date. The CIS conducts competitive tenders to select projects that offer the best financial value and align with Australia’s energy reliability and emissions reduction goals.
