ACEN’s Arayat-Mexico solar farm enters full operations

By Ashley Erika O. Jose – August 30, 2022 | 7:52 pm
from Business World

ACEN Corp. said on Tuesday that its joint venture project with Citicore Power, Inc., a 72-megawatt (MW) solar farm in Arayat and Mexico, Pampanga has entered full operations.

“We are extremely pleased to showcase another successful venture that moves us closer to our shared goals of sustainable development for our country,” Jose Maria Eduardo P. Zabaleta, chief development officer of ACEN, said in a statement.

ACEN, the Ayala group’s listed energy platform, said the solar farm produces sufficient energy to supplying electricity to about 45,000 households, which the company described as a “critical addition” to the grid.

ACEN said the project will do away with 72,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually had conventional methods been used to generate the power. It also created more than 1,500 job opportunities in the host communities.

Oliver Y. Tan, president and chief executive officer of Citicore Renewable Energy Corp., said that the company will pursue more collaboration with ACEN.

“Citicore’s engineering excellence and end-to-end project development capabilities, from construction to commissioning, enabled a fast turnaround time for the completion of this maiden joint venture project with ACEN,” he added.

The P2.9-billion joint venture was completed less than a year after ground breaking in June 2021. In a disclosure in March 2022, ACEN said that the solar farm started to export power to the grid on March 23.

ACEN and Citicore are now developing the project’s 44 MW second phase, which is expected to be commissioned by the second quarter of 2023. Once fully operational, the project’s full capacity will be 116 MW.