Soft spot prices sink ACEN profits

Despite its focus on clean energy, ACEN Corp.’s bottom line struggled through September, as the Ayala-led firm's net income fell, hampered by reduced output from its renewable assets and soft spot market prices.

- By GABRIELL CHRISTEL GALANG.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday, Nov. 7, ACEN reported that its net income in the first nine months of the year significantly dropped by 78 percent to P1.8 billion, while its revenue decreased by 18 percent to P23 billion.

Despite this, its attributable renew-ables output grew 16 percent to 4,843 gigawatt-hours (GWh) as its investments in Australia and Laos have generated new contributions to the overall capacity.

According to the renewable energy (RE) firm, the Philippines and Australia faced lower spot prices in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM). Additionally, lower generation from some of its solar plants and the offline wind turbines in Northern Luzon have impacted the nine-month financial performance.