Phl has great potential for microgrid development

SINGAPORE — The Philippines has great potential for microgrid developments and French multinational firm Schneider Electric is positioning itself aggressively in the middle of the country’s transition to power up off-grid areas by bringing in distributed energy solutions.

In Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia share the challenge of providing power to every corner of the country since they are made up of a lot of islands which are not directly connected to the main power grid, Schneider Electric executive vice president for industry business and member of the executive committee Peter Herweck said in an interview during the company’s Innovation Summit at Marina Bay Sands.

“It becomes, of course, very interesting for countries like the Philippines and the same is also true for Indonesia where you have a lot of islands, you have to make sure that a grid is self-sufficient,” he said.

“We’ve discussed challenges in the Philippine market which is geography, weather conditions and a lot of people who do not have access to safe, reliable energy is the country,” he said.

The Philippine government is pushing to achieve 100 percent electrification for the entire country by 2022.

But the challenge remains in funding and sourcing investments to put up microgrids in far-flung areas, to which Malacañang is reportedly preparing an executive order to encourage private investment in rural electrification.

And this is one area Schneider Electric is focusing its investments on.

“We are seeing great potential in the Philippines, given its many islands where powering and digitizing many islands is a specific challenge… We believe that this is one great potential of the Philippines. This is one of the biggest things we want to do,” Schneider Electric executive vice president for international operations Luc Remont said.

During the summit, the French multinational firm— whose main business is energy management and automation— introduced a number of technologies including a decentralized energy system to existing clients and prospective customers.

Remont said one of the purpose of the meeting is to bring these solutions called EcoStruxure to the Philippines.

So far, it has co-developed several microgrid projects across the globe, including Northern India, South Australia, North America, Europe and Africa.

As microgrid development is one of the global firm’s focus, Schneider Electric is in discussions for potential projects in the country.

“We continue to develop our commercial presence (in the Philippines). We are developing a number of partnerships,” Remont said.

In fact, it is in discussions with a local party interested in putting up a microgrid project in Palawan, Schneider Electric Philippines country president Alexandre Vermot said.

“I was just having a conversation about a project in an island in Palawan, where the customer is willing to invest in a microgrid simply because there is no connection to the grid to the island. It’s an area where digitization and solutions can bring the needed solution for investment and development in the country,” he said.

The company is also working on a few projects in the country as well.

“We have a number of projects up and running like in northern Europe. In the Philippines we have some few projects, we call them in testing stages, but it will come,” Vermot said.