Danish firm to pioneer hybrid RE in PH

Danish firm Vestas is eyeing to pioneer and roll out hybrid renewable energy (RE) ventures in the Philippines, technology amalgamation that could match the functionality of baseload power plants in terms of reliability and cost-effectiveness. Vestas Asia Pacific President Clive Turton said the hybrid system combining wind, solar and battery storage is now being pilot-tested in a Kennedy energy park project in Australia, but this is a venture that could be highly scalable in countries with good wind and solar resources, like the Philippines. “We’d love to help develop that in the Philippines. The Vestas technology would be able to develop that plant to work without any additional capex (capital expenditures),” he said. Turton emphasized “hybrid technology works well in any country where you have good wind resource and good sun,” adding that “in the Philippines, you have very good wind resource and you have very good solar resource.” The Australia project is of 60.2-megawatt capacity, but the Vestas chief executive qualified such could be scaled to bigger capacities for hundreds of megawatts. “Hybrids can help jumpstart RE developments with scale – that’s a combination of wind, solar power and storage, all in one. So, you have the advantage of wind blowing in the night and in the morning, and you have sunshine in the middle of the day; and you have storage to balance reliability of generated capacity,” he explained. (MMV)