ACEN Corp [ACEN 7.50 2.98%] [link], the renewable energy subsidiary of Ayala Corp [AC 702.00 0.71%], said yesterday that it had officially begun commercial operations of its 72 MW Arayat-Mexico solar farm, which was developed under a 50/50 joint venture with Citicore Renewable Energy Corporation (CREC), the Edgar Saavedra-owned parent company of Citicore Energy REIT [CREIT 2.38 0.42%]. ACEN said that the facility cost P2.9 billion to construct, took less than one year to build, and that construction on a 44 MW expansion was already “in full swing”. ACEN expects to begin commercial operation of the expansion phase in Q2 of 2023, for a combined facility capacity of 116 MW.
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Timelines on this have slipped a bit.
CREIT was saying that it might be able to have the extension achieve commercial operations by the end of 2022, but it looks like that has slipped by 3-6 months (depending on your definition of “by Q2 of 2023”).
Slippages have real consequences, especially in resource plays like solar energy, as it’s simply not possible to just try extra hard for a while to collect more sun to make up for the lost time.
Not sure yet if this delay has any material impact on CREC’s plan to download the full project (original and extension) to CREIT, as revealed in April by CREIT’s CEO, Oliver Tan.
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