Aboitiz Power piloting 48MW battery storage in Mindanao

boitiz Power Corporation will be installing a 48-megawatt battery storage system that it will be attaching to a dieselfired power facility in Mindanao.

According to Aboitiz Power Chief Operating Officer Emmanuel V. Rubio, the battery storage will cater to the grid’s need for system reserves – primarily for frequency regulation.

He did not specify which power plant the battery storage will be attached to, but the Aboitiz group has diesel plants operating in the country’s southernmost power grid, including the power barges it previously acquired from state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation.

Aboitiz Power is the second power company in the country that is installing a battery storage system into its power plant portfolio – the first one was AES Corporation prior to its asset sale to the energy investment arm of San Miguel Corporation.

Rubio noted if their technology experiment will be successful in Mindanao, they are intending to scale this in other areas of their operations.

The Aboitiz group has most diversified technology fleets of power plants and strategically spread across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao grids in the country.

Battery storage is seemingly a new technology set for deployment in the energy sector of the Philippines – and it is lined up in the suite of ‘disruptive technologies’ changing industry landscape.

Rubio noted they are not applying for any specified rate for their deployed battery storage – instead, they will just be leveraging on what was previously approved for the AES project.

Battery storage prices are seen on continuing downtrend in the coming years – hence, its application in the power sector is expected to be accelerating moving forward.