Alternergy set to borrow P12B to fund wind farms
MANILA -Former Energy Secretary Vicente Perez Jr.’s renewable energy firm Alternergy Holdings Inc. has tapped three investment banks as lead arrangers for a P12-billion project financing, the company’s biggest loan so far, for the development of wind projects that must come online by 2025.
As lead arrangers, RCBC Capital, BPI Capital and SB Capital will initiate a syndicated loan to fund the construction of the Tanay and Alabat wind power projects in Rizal and Quezon provinces.
They are also expected to “assist Alternergy in finalizing the terms and structure of the debt financing.”
“Alternergy is delighted to work with these investment banks that will support us in expanding our green loan financing. We have been a long-term partner of RCBC Capital and equally excited to forge new partnerships with BPI Capital and SB Capital,” Perez said.
This would be Alternergy’s biggest project financing deal thus far, he added.
Alternergy won the two projects with a combined capacity of 164 megawatts (MW) through the Department of Energy’s (DOE) second Green Energy Auction Program (GEA-2), which requires the company to complete the undertaking by 2025.
READ: Vince Perez’s triple RE strategy
The DOE held GEA-2 in July where it bid out 11,600 MW of renewable energy capacity that it ordered should be available in the next three years.
GEA-2 is crucial in achieving the government’s goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and increasing the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix from the current 22 percent to 35 percent by 2030 and to 50 percent by 2040.
Of the 3,720 MW of offshore wind capacity auctioned off, 1,512.38 MW was committed for completion in 2025 and 2026.
Alternergy president Gerry Magbanua earlier said they aimed to develop up to 1,370 MW of additional renewable energy projects composed of wind, solar and run-of-river hydropower facilities in the next five years.
In March, the company secured P1 billion in debt financing for its 28-MW Solana solar power project in Hermosa, Bataan province, also through RCBC. INQ
