ACEN Corp., the renewable energy (RE) platform of the Ayala Group, said that recorded net income for the first quarter of 2025 fell by 28 percent to P1.95 billion, from P2.72 billion a year earlier, due mainly to lower electricity sales and prices.
The company said the impact of weather patterns resulted in lower electricity generation, which also led to low-er prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).
Earnings were also hit by higher depreciation and interest bookings with more plants coming into operation, it told the stock exchange.
Nevertheless, ACEN said that core attributable earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, excluding non-recurring income from asset sales, grew 7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to P5.60 billion, driven by improved generation from international plants and an increase in attributable output from power assets in Vietnam.
“ACEN’s first-quarter results reflect some of the challenges of scaling renewables. The company is strengthen-ing its balance sheet with [a] planned equity infusion to ensure that we remain strong amidst these challenges, and sustain our growth initiatives,” ACEN President and CEO Eric Francia said.
CFO and Chief Strategy Officer Jonathan Back said: “Our teams are working intensively to move past the head-winds we experienced in the first quarter. We will continue to expand our operating capacity, bringing our sizable pipeline to fruition, while taking a more measured approach amid today’s external uncertainties.”
Despite a decline in domestic RE generation, ACEN said that total attributable renewables output grew 3 per-cent in the first three months of 2025 to 1,680 gigawatt-hours (GWh) with the international portfolio delivering 1,191 GWh, up 13 percent and benefiting from the full contribution of plants that began operations last year.
As of end-March 2025, ACEN said a little more than half, or 3.6 gigawatts (GW), of its 7-GW renewables portfo-lio was now operational.