CREC, Levanta to form joint venture for wind projects

By Lenie Lectura – October 22, 2024
from Business Mirror

The wind power unit of Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) is partnering with Levanta Renewables (Levanta), a leading Southeast Asia-focused renewable energy platform backed by Actis, for the development of its onshore wind projects.

“We are entering the next phase of CREC’s journey to power a brighter future for the Philippines with the start of our first four onshore wind projects, and there is no better partner to take this step with than Levanta. They bring decades of extensive technical and operational experience to this partnership and to our onshore wind industry,” CREC President Oliver Tan said in a disclosure to the stock exchange Monday.

On behalf of Citicore Wind Energy Corp. (CWEC), CREC signed a strategic partnership agreement with Levanta to establish a joint venture company that will drive the development of CREC’s onshore wind projects.

This strategic partnership pact, signed last October 18, will cover the development, financing, construction, and operations and maintenance of Citicore’s four onshore wind projects located in Luzon and Visayas, all of which secured offtake via the Department of Energy’s Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP) in July 2023 and total 375 megawatts.

The partnership is subject to and conditional upon certain customary conditions and is expected to close in the next few months.

“We are delighted to partner with CREC on the development of onshore wind projects in the Philippines. This partnership marks Levanta’s entry into the Philippines wind market, serving as a key step towards its goal of achieving 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of operating capacity across Southeast Asia by 2028.

We intend to leverage our partnership with CREC to pursue more utility scale renewable energy projects in the Philippines,” said Sudhir Nunes, CEO of Levanta.

CREC has a diversified project portfolio comprising of solar, hydro and wind energy, with its wind pipeline targeting three GW of operating generation capacity over the medium and long term to complement its five GW of solar energy in five years, or until 2028.

Last August, CREC reported that its net income in January to June rose to P456.4 million from last year’s P455.2 million as revenues grew by 13 percent.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange, CREC said its revenues hit P2.09 billion on account of a 15-percent growth in electricity sales to P1.73 billion from P1.5 billion last year. The company also recorded a 6-percent improvement in earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation (EBITDA) to P765 million from P723 million.

Electricity sales accounted for 83 percent of CREC’s revenue during the period, with the balance coming from lease income and service fees. Electricity sales is largely composed of revenues from commercial and industrial customers which rose by 11 percent to P1.08 billion from the previous year’s P974.55 million.

The rest of the company’s electricity sales include revenues from the government’s Feed-In-Tariff program which generated P271.82 million and sales through the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market which reached P57.84 million.

“CREC attributes this robust performance to our portfolio of 10 operating solar power facilities with a combined gross operating capacity of 285 megawatts, making us the second largest solar platform in the country. We ensure optimal performance in our plants to augment grid capacity for peak demand requirements,” said Tan.

With the construction of CREC’s first 1,000 MW in full speed, Tan said CREC expects a “more exciting 2025.”