Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- September 30, 2019 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — More power
industry players are embarking on energy storage systems (ESS) developments to
manage variable renewable energy supply and to provide ancillary service (AS)
to maintain a stable power grid.
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the
country’s largest power distribution utility (DU), has built its first battery
energy storage system (BESS) in partnership with Japan’s Hitachi Ltd. as part
of its smart grid journey.
Meralco and Hitachi inaugurated the
pilot BESS in San Rafael, Bulacan, which can deliver two megawatts (MW) in capacity.
“We’re grateful to Hitachi for
providing us two MW of battery storage energy system,” Meralco president and CEO
Ray Espinosa said. “These are modular, movable. They’re in 40-foot containers.”
The project would help the company
understand and integrate the technology within its distribution system.
“From a DU perspective, we want to
understand how battery energy storage really works and how it will help the
network,” Espinosa said.
In 2015, Meralco chairman Manuel V.
Pangilinan acknowledged the dawn of battery storage will disrupt the company’s
distribution business, thus the need to eventually enter the energy storage
space especially when prices of the technology go down.
With the new ESS project, Meralco
will also be able to address the variability of renewable energy supply within
its system.
“That would acquaint our network
engineers on how we can use this energy storage system as a way of stabilizing
renewables,” Espinosa said.
“As you know, renewables are not
that stable in a sense that they can fluctuate within the day, especially
solar, so the storage system is very important to provide that stability,” he
said.
This is the same reason why the
power unit of the Ayala Group is also actively exploring the development of
ESS.
“If we are to scale up renewables in
the country, renewables cannot be scaled up without complementary technology be
it battery or storage as well as gas which is more complementary than coal
because of its flexibility,” AC Energy Inc. president and CEO Eric Francia
said.
The Ayala firm is studying a broad
array of energy storage technology. There are various kinds of ESS, such as
battery, compressed air energy storage, flywheel energy storage and
pumped-storage hydropower.
“We are actively exploring storage.
We’re going to do a pilot project. We haven’t done the construction yet, but
that’s something we’re looking into,” Francia said.
Meanwhile, the Aboitiz Group is also
planning several ESS projects to serve the ancillary needs of the power grid.
“We have a number of projects that
we are looking, battery energy storage technology primarily for ancillary
services (AS),” Aboitiz Power Corp. COO Emmanuel Rubio said.
AS is necessary to support the
transmission of capacity and energy from resources to loads while maintaining
reliable operation of the transmission system in accordance with good utility
practice and the grid code.
The AboitizPower official said the
company has (a list of ESS projects) in the pipeline and is working closely
with the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) for these projects.
“We’ve submitted (a list of
projects) for SIS (system impact study) applications to NGCP,” Rubio said.
Last year, SN Aboitiz Power Group
(SNAP) – the joint venture of SN Power of Norway and AboitizPower – announced
plans to construct a $28-million BESS facility in its Magat Hydro Electric
Power Plant (HEPP).
The said facility will be used to boost
the company’s ancillary services (AS) and standby power supply that can be
tapped in case the regular supply falls short of the requirement.
The Energy Regulatory Commission had
classified BESS as a new source of frequency control ancillary services.
Meanwhile, the Department of Energy
(DOE) recently issued a framework to promote and regulate the development of
ESS in the country.
The agency said the applications and
the benefits of ESS as an emerging technology is recognized in the improvement
of the electric power system to ensure the quality, reliability, security and
affordability of the supply of electric power.
The framework also aims to address
concerns from existing and prospective ESS proponents over the lack of
governing policy framework for the regulation and operation of the technology.
