AC Energy Holdings Inc., a unit of conglomerate Ayala Corp., plans to invest in another Southeast Asian country in the next 12 to 18 months, a company official said Wednesday.
AC Energy president John Eric Francia told reporters the company was closely looking at investment opportunities in Vietnam, after building a project in Indonesia.
“In terms of being systematic, putting our limited resources to work outside the Philippines, it’s really Indonesia first and number two is Vietnam. The rest, it will be opportunistic,” Francia said.
He said any future overseas investment should have “a good local partner with values that are aligned, (with) local capabilities, (and) a good pipeline of projects.
“We’re flexible in terms of technology. It could be renewable energy, gas, coal, it could be (a) combination,” he said.
“I would prefer to have small, mid-size where we can be a more meaningful partner as opposed to a very large platform where we are a financial minority investor,” the official said
Francia said Vietnam was a good investment opportunity because of the big demand for power, citing the company’s presence through Manila Water Co. Inc.
He said AC Energy was transforming itself into a regional energy company with investment, development, operations and retail capability.
“AC Energy is at a critical inflection point. Our transformation is enabled by rapid organic growth and key strategic acquisitions,” he said.
The company recently achieved two major milestones. AC Energy, through a
consortium with Star Energy and Egco of Thailand, won the bidding for Chevron’s geothermal assets and operations in Indonesia in December 2016.
Francia expects to close the Indonesia asset acquisition in the next few days.
AC Energy also broke ground to start the construction of the 75-megawatt Sidrap wind farm in Sulawesi, Indonesia, the country’s first commercial project.
AC Energy plans to expand its presence in Indonesia by working with existing partners in pursuing greenfield projects.
“While it will take time to strengthen our presence in Indonesia, we have started to look around the Southeast Asia region and we hope to make our second regional investment in about 12-18 months,” Francia said.
AC Energy, meanwhile, reached 1,000 MW of attributable capacity in 2016 in just five years.
The company recently set a new target of reaching 2,000 MW of attributable
capacity by 2020, with half accounted by renewable energy projects.
AC Energy currently has 1,300 MW of capacity, including 300 MW of renewable energy.
AC Energy recently acquired Bronzeoak Clean Energy and San Carlos Clean
Energy.
Bronzeoak Philippines group is one of the leading renewable energy developers, having built over 250 MW of solar and biomass projects.