AES to build first battery storage facility in Phl

MANILA, Philippines - AES Philippines Power Partners Co., the local subsidiary of US energy giant AES Corp., is planning to put up 40-megawatt battery storage in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, the first such project of its kind in the Philippines.

According to documents from the Department of Energy, the US firm subsidiary’s battery storage project is among the list of indicative power projects for the Visayas grid, which is expected to come online by March 2015.

Some indicative projects are on the preliminary and exploratory stage.

 â€œThey (AES) have a proposal to NGCP (National Grid Corp. of the Philippines) as ancillary services provider,” said Department of Energy director Mylene Capongcol.

It will undertake the project through subsidiary AES Energy Storage, which is engaged in the business of commercial energy storage. This allows customers to unlock value from existing power infrastructure by liberating reserve capacity, enabling renewable facilities to generate new revenue streams, improving flexibility and reliability of the power system, and meeting peak power demand.

In the Philippines, AES is working on the P49.5-billion, 600-MW expansion of its existing Masinloc coal plant in Zambales. The company hopes to start construction by the second quarter.

The target commissioning of the plant is in the third quarter of 2017, DOE documents also showed.

AES is a global power company with generation and distribution businesses in 30 countries.

The company entered the Philippine market in 2008 by acquiring the 600-MW thermal power plant in Zambales from the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), the government corporation tasked to privatize state-owned assets.

 â€œBy successfully rehabilitating the 10-year old Masinloc Power Plant, AES not only expanded its footprint in Asia. It also demonstrated its deep local knowledge and distinctive operational skills honed from more than two decades of leadership in the global energy sector and pioneering advances in many markets,” AES said.

AES supplies its power through the Wholesale Electricity Market, the country’s trading floor for electricity, and through bilateral contracts with investor-owned electric utilities or distribution utilities (DUs), including Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), a few local government-owned utilities and numerous electric cooperatives which sell to households as well as commercial and industrial enterprises located within their franchise areas at retail rates regulated by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).