Ayala tech unit rethinks renewable energy tack

MANILA, Philippines–Electronics manufacturing services firm Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. (IMI) is still interested in getting into the domestic renewable energy business, particularly solar energy, to ride on the government’s increasing focus on this energy source.

But IMI, a unit of the Ayala group, is reconsidering its existing investment in a renewable energy firm in Fremont, California, which is engaged in the mass production of solar panels.

“We’re rethinking it. Now that the global oil market is also down, the economics of renewable (energy) is less attractive,” IMI chief finance officer Jerome Tan said at the sidelines of last Friday’s listing of P1.6 billion worth of new shares sold by IMI to the public.

For Tan, the Philippine government’s renewable energy initiatives present opportunities for IMI.

Specifically, he said, IMI could use what it had previously learned from its solar energy investment in the United States.

Previously, IMI was quite upbeat over the mass production of solar energy panels in the United States, particularly when oil prices began to skyrocket.

IMI Energy Solutions, a division of IMI USA, has provided solar panel codevelopment, prototyping and low-volume production to North American companies with varied technologies. These technologies include concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) with cogeneration of water heater and electricity, glass-on-glass solar panel and glass-on backsheet.

But with oil prices collapsing, Tan said the solar energy business had become very challenging.

However, he added, there are potential partners still interested in getting into the US unit and IMI is open to letting them drive the business.

At present, Tan said, the group is “considering options” for its US business.

In the Philippines, a projected shortfall in energy supply over the next few years has prompted the government to consider more renewable energy options.

The Department of Energy has announced plans to increase the installation target for solar energy from 50 megawatts (MW) to 500 MW under the feed-in-tariff (FIT) subsidy, explaining that the country has to build energy reserves in the summer months of 2015 and 2016.—Doris C. Dumlao