AC Energy starts commercial run of wind farm in Vietnam

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AYALA-LED AC Energy Corp. said on Monday that its 88-megawatt (MW) Ninh Thuan wind farm in South Central Vietnam has begun commercial operations.

This marks the listed power company’s first operating wind plant in Vietnam, bringing its renewable energy (RE) capacity of ongoing and completed projects in the foreign country to around 1,000 MW.

The wind farm is a $155-million joint venture of AC Energy and Vietnam-based private conglomerate BIM Group.

“We laud the Vietnam government’s strong commitment to RE and for creating an enabling environment for industry players such as ourselves to participate in the country’s thriving power sector,” said AC Energy President and Chief Executive Officer Eric T. Francia said in a regulatory filing.

He said the company, which he describes to be at the forefront of the energy transition, has recognized Vietnam as one of its priority markets. Vietnam is AC Energy’s second-largest market to date after the Philippines.

The wind farm features 22 units of GE Renewable Energy’s Cypress turbines, the company said. It is expected to produce 327 gigawatt hours per year once fully operational, enough to power around 50,000 homes per year with renewable energy that can help avoid 298,551 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually.

“We are very excited to bring this new project into commercial operations ahead of the Feed-In Tariff deadline, notwithstanding the many challenges brought about by the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic,” said Patrice R. Clausse, chief operating officer of AC Energy International.

The wind farm project is the second time the power firm has partnered up with the BIM Group, with their first joint project being the 405-MW Ninh Thuan solar farm, one of the largest in Southeast Asia, which was inaugurated in 2019.

The 405-MW solar facility and 88-MW wind farm are expected to generate a combined 900 million-kilowatt hours of clean power every year.

AC Energy is in the process of building three other RE facilities in Vietnam. They are the 80-MW Mui Ne wind farm; the Lac Hoa & Hoa Dong wind farms with an aggregate capacity of 60 MW; and the 252-MW Quang Binh wind farm, according to the firm’s website.

AC Energy is the listed energy platform of the Ayala group. It has an attributable capacity of around 2,600 MW in Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, India, and Australia.

The company aspires to be the largest listed renewables platform in the region as it targets to hit 5,000 MW of RE capacity by 2025.

AC Energy shares at the local bourse improved 2.58% or 30 centavos to finish at P11.92 apiece on Monday. — Angelica Y. Yang