Danish wind farm builder bets on ACEN’s local expertise for $3 billion Camarines Sur project

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January 26, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) is anchoring its $3-billion offshore wind farm in Camarines Sur on ACEN Corp.’s deep expertise in navigating the Philippine market.

“We may have the experience in doing offshore wind (projects) around the world, but they (ACEN) have the experience in operating in the Philippines,” said Rune Damgaard, CEO of Copenhagen Offshore Partners, CIP’s investment vehicle in the Philippines.

The Zobel family’s power arm acquired last year a 25-percent stake in CIP’s proposed one-gigawatt San Miguel Bay Project, one of the offshore wind frontrunners tagged by the government.

This marks ACEN’s first-ever investment in offshore wind, boosting its current portfolio of onshore wind projects in the Philippines and abroad.

“It wasn’t an objective of divesting; the objective was to bring in an experienced partner,” Damgaard said in a recent interview.

With the combined expertise of both companies, he said, CIP sees a strong “success recipe” in delivering the Camarines Sur project.

The COP official also left open the possibility of selling more shares to ACEN or other prospective investors.

“I never exclude selling more shares. For sure we will retain control and at least 50 percent until the project is fully completed. That is the principle of CIP, and we have always done it like that,” Damgaard noted.

Covering an offshore area of 23,307 hectares, the San Miguel Bay Project is scheduled to begin construction as early as July this year, with commercial operations targeted by the third quarter of 2028.

The timeline, however, may still change depending on factors that arise during project implementation.

ACEN president and CEO Eric Francia said the company would first focus on understanding the complexities of the technology before pursuing other potential offshore wind investments.

“We’re not looking to do another offshore wind project at this point. We’ll focus on this one first. We need to learn first,” Francia said.

The San Miguel Bay Project is currently in its pre-development stage in anticipation of the government’s fifth green energy auction (GEA-5) round.

Under GEA-5, the Department of Energy targets 3,300 megawatts of capacity for delivery from 2028 to 2030 in a bid to generate the first kilowatt-hours of offshore wind power before President Marcos ends his term.

Recently, the Energy Regulatory Commission set a preliminary ceiling price of P10.3859 per kWh for GEA-5, the highest in the history of the country’s renewable energy auctions.