Citicore Renewable Energy to allot $2B for 2026 capexCiticore Renewable Energy to allot $2B for 2026 capex Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) will boost capital expenditures (capex) this year for the continued rollout of solar and battery energy storage system projects, a senior official said.
“Our capex for the year will be approximately around $2 billon and last year was around $1 billion,” CREC President and CEO Oliver Tan said late on Friday.
“For this year, the capex will be more than last year and [will] mostly be used for our projects under the fourth round of the Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP),” he added.
Tan said one reason for the 2026 increase was that the firm would be energizing previous GEAP projects that were now nearly complete.
The capex will be funded by internal funding and borrowings, Tan added.
Aside from a target of putting up 1 gigawatt (GW) of capacity, he said that they intended to construct more energy projects totaling another GW.
“[W]e believe this goal is possible, barring any extreme weather conditions, or any force majeure events,” Tan said.
Renewable energy capacity coming online this year totals around 850 megawatts (MW), he said.
“If I recall [correctly], two of these projects are in North Luzon, two in South Luzon and one in the Visayas. As for the projects that are in our second and third GW pipelines, these are mostly in Batangas, Quezon, and some are in the Visayas as well,” Tan said.
“We are actively learning and putting into use what we learned from the first GW [pipeline] and the technologies. The same disciplines in [sister firm] Megawide Construction Corp., we’re applying [those] in the construction of our solar plants so we can accelerate the construction.”
Looking ahead, he said that while there was optimism for 2026, they expect a weak peso to pose a hurdle.
“The weak peso is definitely one of our headwinds because of our heavy capex, since we import almost 50 to 60 percent of our equipment,” Tan said.
“Possible high commodity prices, especially copper and silver, are other factors as well because they are part of the technology we use,” he added.
CREC shares on Friday slipped by P0.05 to close at P4.41 apiece.
