Citicore awards battery storage project to Chinese firm

MANILA, Philippines — Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) of tycoon Edgar Saavedra has partnered with China-based Sungrow Power Supply Co. Ltd. to bolster the development of its battery energy storage systems (BESS).

CREC signed a supply and services agreement with Sungrow last Friday for the procurement of 1.5 gigawatt (GW) hour worth of BESS, which will be used by CREC for its solar projects across the country.

Under the strategic deal, Sungrow is also expected to provide engineering and construction design support to CREC, ensuring the optimal integration of BESS technologies into the solar facilities.

“We are happy to support CREC in its goals to advance energy storage systems in the Philippines. Through our technology, we will be able to help CREC and the Philippines with its power needs,” said Sungrow VP Shawn Shi.

A global leader in renewable energy (RE) technology, Sungrow has provided sustainable power solutions for over 27 years, installing over 600 MW of power electronic converters globally.

“The immediate development of (BESS) is a necessary step to fulfill the maximum potential of our (RE) facilities and is crucial to our support for the Department of Energy’s ambitious energy transition plan,” CREC president and CEO Oliver Tan said.

“With these installed together with our solar facilities, we will be able to provide needed power on a mid-merit basis,” he added.

A BESS is a system that stores electricity from power plants or the power grid for various applications such as grid stability, energy efficiency and renewable integration.

This is an important component for RE facilities such as solar power plants, providing backup power to address solar’s intermittency and variability limitations.

CREC, a pure-play RE platform focused on and committed to the development of clean energy projects, intends to scale up its portfolio with a target of five GW of solar capacity over the next four years.

This bodes well for the country’s goal of expanding the share of renewables in the power generation mix to 35 percent by 2030.