By Ed Paolo Salting | The Manila Times
July 12, 2023
ACEN Corp. plans to enter into a joint venture with the Norwegian Investment Fund (Norfund) to provide solar power solutions for telecom towers in the Philippines.
In a disclosure to the stock exchange, ACEN said the joint venture with Norfund would involve investing in YMP Telecom Power Inc.
The Ayala Corp.’s clean energy arm said its executive committee had approved the proposed joint venture on Monday.
The proposed joint venture, it said, is “for the provision of sustainable and affordable telecom tower solarization solutions in the Philippines, on terms as presented and subject to definitive documentation.”
The joint venture will be called Micropower Philippines and will provide solar power to telecom towers owned by telcos in the country.
More details about the proposed joint venture will be disclosed moving forward, ACEN said.
YMP, according to its website, is a leading company in Southeast Asia focused on distributing renewable energy to encourage telecom operators, tower companies, commercial and industrial companies, and homeowners to adopt decarbonization to ensure a sustainable future for all.
Its investors include the Yoma Group, a Myanmar conglomerate; Norfund; the International Finance Corp. (IFC), the World Bank Group’s development finance arm; and Alakesh Chetia, the founder of the company.
Norfund is the Norwegian Investment Fund for developing countries, with around $2.5 billion in total commitments as of 2021.
It is owned and funded by the Norwegian government and is used as a vehicle to help strengthen the private sector in developing countries.
ACEN, meanwhile, is an energy firm committed to transition its generation portfolio to 100 percent renewable energy by 2025 and to become a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions company by 2050.
The company’s share price went up by 2 centavos or 0.39 percent to P5.19 on Tuesday amid a 0.30-percent uptick for the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index.