A newly formed joint venture (JV) between 4 Southeast Asian companies, Singapore headquartered athein aims to raise $1 billion over the next 3 years to fund its currently operational and under development pipeline of around 2 GW wind and solar power projects in Australia, India, Philippines and Vietnam.
Its current pipeline includes 450 MW confirmed in Australia, 300 MW in India, 200 MW in Philippines, and 100 MW in Vietnam. Overall, it counts the company's effective pipeline as 1.05 GW confirmed, 584 MW under development and 224 MW operational capacity across these economies.
The company has been founded by Vietnamese steel structure manufacturer ATAD Steel Structure Corporation, Singapore's solar developer Hexagon Holdings, Vietnamese rooftop solar project development and EPC Inpos Ltd, and Philippines' solar EPC company Invenic Inc.
The IPP targets to operate 1 GW of renewable energy assets by 2026 and scale it up to 5 GW by 2030 and help companies achieve their net zero targets. Scope is huge, according to them, as some 300 large multinationals are reaching their deadline to go 100% renewable by 2025 under RE100.
Seeing an opportunity in high conventional electricity prices across target markets, the independent power producer (IPP) athein wants to speed up renewable energy deployment in these economies that win for being still low on cost.
Co-Founder and Head of Vietnam for athein Dzung Nguyen says the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for renewables in this region is on an average 46% lower than average end-user tariffs in 2022.
According to the company, in key Asia Pacific economies, the annual increase in electricity costs is about 25% in 2023 reflected in LNG prices 2.5 times higher than in 2019 while coal prices have quadrupled. EVN in Vietnam has raised retail electricity prices by nearly 20% and there are increases in the wholesale market prices of Philippines and parts of Australia.
Similarly, India is 'headed towards a power crisis'. Athein Co-Founder and CCO Edmund Yen believes this is the time when businesses and households are desperate for alternatives.
"Despite the fading subsidies for clean energy, despite the current economic turmoil – the inflation rates, the volatile currencies, the supply chain and logistics bottlenecks, 2023 will be another record year for capital deployment in green power," said athein's Co-Founder and CEO -` Milan Koev.