Ayala’s AC Energy to Build 100 MW Solar Plant in India

Ayala Corporation’s subsidiary AC Energy is making its first major investment in India by developing the 100 MW ac Sitara solar plant in Rajasthan, India.

Ayala Corporation’s subsidiary AC Energy is making its first major investment in India by developing the 100 MW ac Sitara solar plant through its joint venture with UPC Renewables China Holdings in Rajasthan, India.

The 140 MW peak solar farm is expected to start generating power by the first quarter of 2021 and will supply the power generated to Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) on a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA), AC Energy issued in a statement. SECI will act as the intermediary procurer and will further offload the power state Discoms in the country.

AC Energy announced that its JV company won the agreement through a competitive bid of Rs 2.4 per kilowatt-hour. The facility will be located in Rajasthan, which gets some of the most intense sunlight in the country.

The energy unit of Ayala Corporation, one of the Philippines’ oldest conglomerates, also announced that it would build a 210 MW wind farm that would be the biggest in Vietnam. The investments will take AC Energy’s total renewables capacity to more than 1,200 megawatts, in line with its target to reach 5,000 megawatts by 2025 and fully divest from coal by 2030.

In October 2019, we had reported that UPC-AC Energy Solar, the joint venture company between AC Energy and UPC Solar Asia Pacific (UPC Renewables’ solar energy platform) has been formed for the development, construction and operations of solar projects in the Asia-Pacific region.

The joint venture company had specified that it was targeting the construction of a portfolio of over 1 GW in the next few years, with an initial focus on India, South Korea and Taiwan. AC Energy is investing USD 20 million via a development loan to finance the development of this pipeline and expects to provide all the construction equity required for these projects.