As part of its progressing renewable energy advancement, ACEN Corporation intends to invest $ 1.5B in an enormous solar farm and energy storage system.
Irene Maranan, ACEN senior vice president and head of corporate communications and sustainability stated to the Inquirer about the replacement of the coal plan in Batangas, the 246-megawatt (MW) South Luzon Thermal Energy Corporation (SLTEC) by the midmerit integrated renewables and energy storage (IRESS), which ACEN hopes to retire by 2030.
Project financing will be partly received from the revenues produced through the sale of transition credits along with the fundings from partners such as Temasek and Singapore’s Keppel Ltd.
A creative financial instrument called transition credits was fabricated to initiate the replacement of coal-fired power facilities with renewable energy sources. In the past, ACEN has launched this method in partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Maranan further added that IRES will incorporate a 1,400-megawatt peak(MWp) with a 1,600 megawatt-hour battery energy storage system.
She further stated that the project is deliberately “oversized” so as to grant stable and available power that would stabilize the grid.
Establishment of IRESS is anticipated to commence by 2027 or 2028 and will be completed in three to four years, meeting its 2030 target for the SLTEC shutdown ten years in advance of the schedule.
Maranan stated that by 2030, the company targets for at least two or three functional phases that supplies power to the grid.
Although the project’s placement still remains a question mark, ACEN is working closely with the DOE to proceed the IRESS plan while awaiting a notice from the agency to move ahead.
At present, ACEN has flourished its renewable energy capacity to 6.8 gigawatts and by 2030 aims to advance it to 20 GW.
