BELGIAN solar-project developer Enfinity N.V. said on Friday that the cost of battery storage is expected to go down by as much as 85 percent in the next five years.
This projection, if and when it happens, will strategically position solar power as a low-cost option in the country’s power mix and will likely end the country’s power woes.
“Within five years, battery-storage costs are predicted to go down by 85 percent, which will make solar the low-cost choice for intermediate load,” said William Ruccius, business development director of Enfinity Philippines. In a power system, intermediate load power plants are those that can provide supply on optimum operations, such as coal-fired and natural-gas power plants. But with battery storage, the need for reliability and power quality in an electricity system can also be addressed aptly by solar.
Aside from on-grid installations, battery storage would also be an ideal match to solar homes and as a micro-grid solution, as well as a technology option for areas under the Small Power Utilities Group (SPUG) of the National Power Corp.
“In the Philippines today, battery storage on the level of private houses is already affordable and people are currently enjoying the benefits of this system,’’ Ruccius said.
Enfinity disclosed that it already cornered orders for more than 200 houses to be equipped with battery storage. This is part of its rollout with joint-venture partner Imperial Homes Corp. on solar-homes project due for construction early next year. “We would be able to build 10,000 of those systems [solar homes with battery storage] across the Philippines over a period of three years. There would be no brownouts anymore for these homes and the end-users will also be saving money,” Ruccius said.
He added that the company is currently working on a micro-grid solution, “with central megawatt battery storage and solar on the houses that will power the whole community in the future without getting connected to the grid.”
This particular advancement in micro-grid solution will be launched in the Philippines by the latter part of 2016, he added.
Along off-grid areas, the deployment of solar with battery storage is expected to drastically cut the P18 billion worth of subsidy payments that all Filipino consumers have been paying for the provision of energy in SPUG areas.
“Hybrid solar can provide power to these SPUG areas today 24 hours a day for a price less than the P14 to P45 per kilowatt-hour—the prevailing electricity rate being charged to consumers in these areas,” Ruccius added.
1 comment
STATE SUBSIDY (govt interventions) is the key to solar power in the country’s power needs.
As of now, triple ang cost ng per/KW/hr of Solar energy than COAL fired ar Natural Gas powered energy combine in the country..specially, bumabagsak, continuing free fall ang presyo ng fossil fuel sa mundo..