CREC unveils plan to expand solar projects to 5,000 MW in the next five years

By Alena Mae S. Flores – February 12, 2023, 6:50 pm
from manilastandard.net

Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. is increasing its solar project pipeline to 5,000 megawatts from 1.5 gigawatts over the next five years, a top executive said over the weekend.

CREC president Oliver Tan said of the target, about 1,000 MW of solar projects would be constructed this year which would require about $800 million in capital expenditures.

“We are building our pipeline projects from originally 1.5 gigawatts to 5,000 MW. The target is to break ground 1 GW of projects this year, so meaning by early next year, we will have almost 1.25 GW of installed capacity that would be approximately P7 billion to P8 billion top line of our generation revenue,” Tan said.

Most solar projects would be constructed this year in Batangas province (600 MW), while the remaining 400 MW would rise in Pampanga and Tarlac provinces. CREC expects these solar projects to start operations by early 2024.

Tan said the new projects would “increase our lease revenue by 30 percent from that additional portfolio.”

He said CREC was focusing on solar projects for the near-term as they are faster to construct.

“Short-term would be solar because of the fast turnaround, and we will diversify or mix it with hydro and wind, such that so we can expand our market reach,” he said.

Tan said they also planned to conduct an initial public offering for CREC this year to finance projects lined up for 2023.

He said the IPO was going to be a “blockbuster”, but he did not provide additional details.

Tan said the market received warmly Citicore Energy REIT Corp.’s IPO, and “we saw the opportunity the parent company of CREIT is already increasing its pipeline projects so we think let’s do an IPO also to accelerate, because they are complementary.”

“For a country such as ours where we have limited source of oil and coal but have abundant sun, wind and water, it is imperative that we deploy capital investment into renewable,” he said.

He said government support were needed in RE, specifically in the development of energy storage technology that would accelerate the clean energy transition.

“Because RE is intermittent, with the energy storage, you smoothen out and shy away from fossil fuel,” Tan said.