Ayala-led power generation firm ACEN reported its consolidated net income tumbled by 68 percent to P405 million in the first quarter of the year, from P1.27 billion in the same period last year.
ACEN said the decline in net income was driven by higher costs of purchased power due to elevated spot market prices during a major preventive maintenance outage of its South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp. thermal plant.
Its consolidated revenues for the period rose by 29 percent to P7.4 billion from the previous P5.72 billion, driven by new operating capacity including two solar farms each in the Philippines and in India as well as several wind facilities in Vietnam.
ACEN said without the impact of Typhoon Odette to transmission lines in Visayas as well as a one-time buyout expense related to a customer contract, its net income would have reached approximately P1.6 billion during the period, a growth of 23 percent year-on-year.
“The company faced significant headwinds in the first quarter from the impact of natural disasters, extended plant outages and elevated spot purchases. However, we expect these issues to be resolved in the short to medium term, with the full rehabilitation of transmission lines damaged by Typhoon Odette and supported by new operating capacity coming online in the next few months,” Cora Dizon, ACEN chief finance officer and treasurer, said in a statement.
ACEN currently has over 3,800 megawatts (MW) of attributable capacity in the Philippines and across the region, of which over 3,300 MW or 87 percent is from renewable energy sources.
