AES Philippines Inc. on Thursday said its Battery Energy Storage (BES) could be part of the solution to address the anticipated power crisis set to happen in the summer of 2015.
In a briefing, AES Market Business Leader Neeraj Bhat said the company has long been offering its BES service in other countries. The company is eyeing to introduce it in the Philippines soon.
“This project started prior to the emergency-power issue. The BES is potentially part of the solution because it will free up capacity for energy generation. If we can get it in time for summer, then we will contribute to the solution,” he said, adding that the BES can be put up within nine months to 12 months.
Construction for the energy-storage projects has yet to start but the company is already in talks with the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) as among its customers. “We’re working on the development with some potential customers, NGCP being the largest. Yes, we’d like to put it in construction in 2015 depending on how the development goes,” Bhat said.
Ancillary services refer to standby power supply that can be tapped in case regular supply to the grid falls short of the requirement. By having this extra capacity, NGCP can ensure that the facilities and the grid will not be damaged due to a sudden drop in voltage.
The company plans to build a 40-megawatt (MW) BES project in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental.
The battery-storage project is a new technology using rechargeable cells used for ancillary services.
“We are looking at installing a 40-MW BES project in Negros and NGCP has directed us there because that is where they have a ready installation. We can immediately connect to that,” AES Vice President for Commercial Chrysogonus Herrera said.
AES, said Herrera, also plans to put up a 10-MW BES within the Masinloc power plant in Zambales. “We plan to put up a battery storage in Masinloc, maybe a pilot of 10 MW, then we can scale this up very quickly.” More than five years of commercial energy-storage development and operations to deliver the most reliable, safe and best-performing battery-storage solution in the country, AES serves utility markets with over 200 MW of storage resources already installed and in operation, and more than 1,000 MW on development.
AES is also committed to increase the capacity of the Masinloc facility by another 600 MW.
“We’re working on the 600-MW expansion of the Masinloc power plant. We expect to start construction in 2015.
It will be a three- to four-year construction period so we are talking of finishing it by 2018,” said Bhat, adding that the company is now working on the engineering, procurement, construction contracts.