MANILA, Philippines - Ayala Land Inc, one of the country's biggest real estate firms, will soon engage in retail electricity operations, largely to supply the needs of Ayala-owned and managed malls, office buildings, business process outsourcing (BPO), hotels and affiliates in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

On Thursday, February 7, Ayala Land said that its subsidiary, DirectPower Services Inc., has obtained a 5-year retail electricity supplier license from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), the state-owned regulator for the power sector.

The ERC said in its decision that its evaluation showed that DirectPower has the technical, financial and managerial abilities to meet the requirements of the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), the country’s trading floor for electricity, to meet its contractual obligations.

DirectPower said in its application to the ERC that Ayala Land infused P40 million in capital to support its operations. DirectPower initially plans to supply the energy requirement of customers in the electricity market that has a total average peak demand of around 50 megawatts.

Power portfolio

The Ayala group has been slowly beefing up its energy portfolio.

Holding firm Ayala Corp has a power arm, AC Energy Holdings Inc, which has recently entered into an agreement with A. Brown Co.'s (ABC) subsidiaries to build a 135 megawatt (MW) power plant in Panay that will use clean coal.

The group is has been seeking greenfield projects and has been eyeing to bid for the contracted capacities and/or assets of the government.

Ayala plans to build at least 1,000 megawatts of power-generation capacity in the next 5 years. - Rappler.com