Updated June 29, 2018, 11:41 PM By Myrna M.
Velasco
With the massive-scale renewable
energy (RE) development of 15,300 megawatts that the Philippines has been
aiming for, technological solutions that shall be in the combination of
flexible gas-fired power plants and battery storage are needed to manage and
spare the grid from interruptions that could be triggered by RE’s intermittency
predicament.
“Progressive grids need to plan for
it, because if you don’t plan for it – you’ll get caught flat-footed.
Intermittency – that’s built-in because of all the solar penetration,” First
Gen Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Federico R. Lopez has noted.
The good news then, according to
him, is that solutions on the technology front are already out and started
thriving in markets, and subsequently re-positioning RE as a cheaper option for
consumers and also rendering as myth the “concept of baseload” traditionally
fixated on coal plants.
Flexibility that could be provided
by gas-fired power plants, because of their fast ramp-up rate, is one of the
solutions, although he noted that there are actually a lot of flexibilities
that have to be managed in an electricity system.
“There are many solutions to
flexibility – it can be seasonal flexibility, it can be hourly, minute and even
by the second. And you need an arsenal of solutions to be able to handle that
as you move forward,” Lopez stressed.
He indicated that conventionally,
“there’s flexible base, and then there’s flexible peak. The flexible base
solution could have the likes of San Gabriel plant, flexible peak will be Avion
because in the span of minutes, they can be up and running. But then you also
need batteries to handle the per minute swings.”
Essentially, he reiterated that
“progressive grids need to plan for that this early because it takes time to
set up all these solutions.”
Lopez previously indicated that
“economically-priced renewable energy is here. It will only get cheaper and in
due time, will permeate our lives whether we like it or not. And there is no
stopping that.”
Other than battery storage and
flexible gas plants, Lopez cited several other technologies and power system
tools that can manage the intermittency problem of RE, including high voltage
direct current (HVDC) transmission networks that expand the geographic coverage
of wind and solar to smoothen out variability; ice storage high voltage
alternating current (HVAC), pump hydro and flywheel storage.
“When someone tells you that RE is
intermittent and makes power grids unstable, know that there are many
technically and economically feasible ways to handle these issues, and
progressive grids are already incorporating them into their day-to-day
operations,” he emphasized.
In time, Lopez further noted that
these technological solutions for RE could also eclipse the usefulness of coal
plants “because they do not have the needed ramp up flexibility” or not
adjustable enough on their cycle of generation to keep pace with unwarranted
supply-demand fluctuations in the system.
Lopez quipped that such scenario
“begs the question: why do we even need to put up new coal plants? Plants that
we already know will be underutilized, whose exorbitant costs will be saddled
on to captive electricity consumers” – or those that cannot freely choose yet
on their electricity service, such as residential end-users.
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