ACEN bags 900-MW wind project in Australia

The flags of Australia and the Philippines. | INQUIRER.net stock images

ACEN Corp., the listed energy platform of the Ayala Group, emerged as the winner from a recent bidding for a 900-megawatts (MW) wind park project in Australia.

The company said the facility, dubbed as “Valley of the Winds,” will be built in Coolah in New South Wales, within a location designated as a Renewable Energy Zone.

According to its president and chief executive officer Eric Francia, the contract was already awarded to ACEN.

READ: ACEN to bolster portfolio with 1.2 GW new capacity by end-2025

Francia said they have received the Capacity Investment Scheme Agreement (CISA), which the executive said was the “large[st]” out of the 19 projects up for auction.

“It’s similar to our [the Philippine government’s] green energy auction program. It’s a slightly different structure, but it enables these renewable projects,” he told reporters in a recent briefing.

The Green Energy Auction Program seeks to boost the Philippine government’s efforts to scale up renewable energy’s share in the country’s power generation mix to 35 percent by 2030, from 22 percent at present.

“So, we won that. So that’s huge. That’s a very big project,” Francia said.

The group, however, did not disclose how much it is investing in the project.

Once operational by 2030, as planned, about 500,000 homes can benefit from the wind power plant, according to ACEN.

ACEN also said expanding the project to include a battery energy storage system (BESS) is on the table.

Industry players worldwide, particularly those involved in renewable sources, have been investing in BESS given the intermittent generation of electricity from clean energy facilities.

A BESS can store power generated during peak operating hours. The stored electricity can then be tapped as a backup source when the grid needs additional supply.