ACEN Corp. said on Thursday that it is set to start building a P2.8-billion 60-megawatt (MW) solar farm in Pangasinan, marking the Ayala-led company’s first development in the province and its second project to commence construction this year.
“We hit the ground running in 2023 with back-to-back projects commencing with construction here in the Philippines, and 700 MW capacity expected to start operations within the next 12 months,” Jose Maria Zabaleta, chief development officer of ACEN, said in a statement.
“At ACEN, we know it’s a race against time and we need big leaps to help curtail potential power shortages and address climate change,” he said, adding that the company aggressively scaling up its clean energy generation to help in the region’s net-zero transition.
The proposed solar farm brings the company closer to its goal of reaching an attributable renewable energy (RE) capacity of 20 gigawatts or 20,000 MW by 2030. It brings the company’s RE projects in operation and under construction in the Philippines to 1,600 MW.
The Pangasinan solar farm will use ground-mounted solar photovoltaic panels and will be directly connected to the Luzon grid through a two-kilometer transmission line to the 69-kilovolt San Manuel substation of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.
It is expected to generate 94 gigawatt-hours yearly to power around 55,000 homes and avoid about 58,369 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. It is also seen to create around 1,000 jobs during the construction phase.