ACEN Corp. said Thursday its Australian unit won a 936-megawatt wind power project in New South Wales that will be able to power up to 500,000 homes.
“The central government, the Australian government actually bid out capacity contracts to enable renewables…Valley of the Winds, that’s our project…This is in Central West Orana. This is the green energy auction equivalent [in the Philippines]. It’s a slightly different structure, but it enables these renewable projects. So, we won that. So that’s huge. That’s a very big project. That’s the latest in Australia,” ACEN president Eric Francia said.
The Commonwealth government of Australia announced that 19 projects were selected as part of a national tender process for its Capacity Investment Scheme last week.
The tender ensures enough new affordable and reliable electricity will be brought into the grid to meet demand between now and 2030.
ACEN said ACEN Australia’s Valley of the Winds project was successful in securing a Capacity Investment Scheme Agreement (CISA) in the latest and largest tender round.
It said Valley of the Winds is the biggest project awarded a CISA to date. Project completion is expected by 2030.
The bidding scheme conducts competitive tenders to select projects that offer the best financial value and align with Australia’s energy reliability and emissions reduction goals.
Meanwhile, ACEN expects to complete 1.2 gigawatts of renewable capacity by the end of next year.
Francia said the company already reached 6.8 gigawatts of power generation capacity, of which 45 percent are operating, 34 percent are under construction and the rest are committed or board-approved projects.
Among the projects expected to be operational next year are the 520-megawatt direct current Stubbo solar project in New South Wales, Australia, the 600-MW Monsoon wind project in Laos and the 300-MW Palauig 2 solar project in Zambales.