Citicore Renewable Energy Corporation (CREC), a Philippine renewable energy developer, has broken ground on the country’s first embedded solar integrated renewable energy and energy storage system (IRESS) facility.
The facility pairs a 41MWp solar PV plant with a 53MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Magalang, Pampanga.
The project is being developed through Citicore Solar Embedded, Inc., a CREC subsidiary focused on distribution-connected solar-plus-storage, in partnership with Pampanga 1 Electric Cooperative (PELCO I), the local distribution utility serving the franchise area.
The company aims to complete construction in the second half of 2027.
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Unlike conventional utility-scale solar plants that feed power into the transmission grid, the Pampanga IRESS will connect directly into PELCO I’s local distribution network.
CREC says the configuration is expected to reduce system losses, lower electricity costs for end users within the PELCO I franchise area, and support PELCO I’s compliance with the Philippines’ Renewable Portfolio Standards, which require distribution utilities to source a minimum share of their supply from renewable energy.
The project is financed through a PHP 4.05 billion (US$66 million) project loan from the state-owned Land Bank of the Philippines, signed on 14 July 2026. The facility covers two 41MWp embedded solar IRESS projects, one in Pampanga and a second in Nueva Ecija, developed with San Jose City Electric Cooperative.
Together, the two projects will add a combined 82MWp of solar capacity and 106MWh of battery storage to CREC’s portfolio.
Citicore Energy Solutions president Jerard Garcia said the project reflected the company’s partnership with PELCO I since 2024 in providing tailor-fit energy solutions designed to ease the burden of rising electricity costs on consumers.
A policy-driven pipeline for IRESS
The Pampanga groundbreaking arrives as the Philippines builds out a policy framework explicitly designed to accelerate IRESS deployment.
The Philippines’ Department of Energy issued a circular in February 2026 requiring all variable renewable energy facilities with an installed capacity of 10MW or more to integrate energy storage systems with a capacity of at least 20% of the renewable energy plant’s capacity.
The mandate covers both grid-connected and off-grid installations and encourages grid-forming inverter technology to improve system stability as renewable energy penetration rises.
The Philippines’ Green Energy Auction 4 programme was the first to make IRESS projects explicitly eligible for long-term supply contracts, awarding agreements to 1.19GW of IRESS project bids alongside broader renewable energy capacity.
The Pampanga IRESS sits within that broader policy push, showcasing a distribution-connected model that differs structurally from the transmission-connected IRESS projects that have dominated the auction pipeline to date.
The distinction matters commercially. By connecting at the distribution level rather than the transmission level, embedded solar IRESS projects bypass the system losses associated with long-distance power transfer.
In the Philippine context, where distribution utilities in provincial areas have historically relied on power sourced from the wholesale electricity spot market and routed through the transmission system, a locally embedded source of firm renewable energy generation measurably changes the economics of supply.
MeralcoPowerGen Corp brought online the first phase of its 100MWh CATL-supplied battery project in Cebu in May, demonstrating that large-scale battery storage can be deployed and operated at the distribution level in the Philippines.
The Pampanga IRESS takes that model a step further by integrating the storage system with a co-located solar generation asset rather than deploying it as a standalone grid service provider.
The CREC project is CREC’s third in Pampanga, following the 115MWp Arayat-Mexico Solar Farm, energised in 2022, and the 42MWp Citicore Solar Pampanga 1, energised in 2025.
CREC has been targeting a 3GW renewable energy portfolio by the end of 2026, with solar supplemented by onshore wind farm development in Camarines Sur and Iloilo in partnership with Singapore-based Levanta Renewables.
