Ayala invests in renewable energy firm

By Victor V. Saulon, Sub-editor
AC ENERGY, Inc. through its international unit has invested in Singapore-based renewable energy company The Blue Circle Pte. Ltd. through a 25% ownership acquisition as well as co-investment rights in the latter’s projects.
“It’s a platform partnership. The Blue Circle, TBC, is a regional development and operations company focused on wind.”
AC Energy Chief Executive Officer Eric T. Francia told reporters on Tuesday.
AC Energy, the energy arm of diversified conglomerate Ayala Corp., and TBC are to jointly develop, construct, own and operate the latter’s pipeline of around 1,500 megawatts (MW) of wind projects across Southeast Asia, including about 700 MW in Vietnam. TBC developed and constructed one of the first wind farms in Vietnam.
Next year, the partnership plans to develop around 100 to 200 MW of wind energy projects in Vietnam out of TBC’s project pipeline in that country, he said.
AC Energy subsidiary AC Energy International Holdings Pte. Ltd. signed the deal with TBC.
“What we like about this platform and partnership is that number one, they have the capabilities and the track record for wind, and number two, they have a very good pipeline of development projects across the region,” Mr. Francia said.
He said TBC’s principal markets are Thailand and Indonesia, although it has some developmental assets in Indonesia and Cambodia, and at a lesser magnitude, in the Philippines.
“We’re gonna begin this relationship by focusing first on Vietnam because that’s where most of the action is,” Mr. Francia said, adding that the regional neighbor has an installation deadline for renewable energy projects aiming for a feed-in tariff.
He said AC Energy has set aside $100 million of equity for these projects.
Mr. Francia said funding for the projects would come from corporate debt and the funds raised from the sell down of AC Energy’s thermal assets. He also said that the company was working with several lenders to put together the loan component to fund the projects.
He placed the cost of putting up each megawatt of wind project at $1.5-$1.6 million dollars.
AC Energy previously said it had more than $1 billion of invested and committed equity in renewable and thermal energy in the Philippines and around the region. It aims to develop five gigawatts of attributable capacity and generate at least half of energy from renewables by 2025.