Acen Renewables, the renewable energy unit of Philippines-based AyalaCorp., said it has begun construction of two solar power plants in its home country. The two facilities, with capacities of 60 MW and 300 MW, will be located in the provinces of Pangasinan and Zambales, respectively, the company said. The construction cost of the Pangasinan solar farm was PHP 2.8 billion.

Acen Renewables said it will be connected directly to the grid via a 2km transmission line to the NGCP 69kV San Manuel substation.

The second project, Palauig 2 Solar farm, will require an investment of 16 billion pesos. Component manufacturer Seraphim will supply 540MWp of high-efficiency solar panels for the installation, the company said. The project will be built adjacent to Acen's existing 63 MW Palauig 1 solar project.

The expansion of our Palauig solar assets comes at an exciting time for ACEN Philippines, as we rely on our core markets to drive our energy transition efforts in the region, said Jose Maria Zabaleta, the company's Chief Development Officer. Palauig 2 Solar is the first of several new plants to begin major construction work in 2023, and maintaining this pace of accelerating exponential growth in the renewable energy space is our top priority.

In February 2022, ACEnergy completed and started up a 40MW/60MWh storage facility at the 120MW Alaminos Solar plant. It is now one of the largest operating PV projects in the country.

The Philippines plans to install 15 GW of clean energy by 2030. The latest statistics from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) put the country's installed PV capacity at 1.08 GW by the end of 2021. Most of the country's solar installations have been given protections from its old feed-in tariff system, as well as auctions and net metering schemes.Editor/XingWentao