MANILA – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday said the Philippines may not have to build big power generators like the $2.3-billion Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) anymore as his administration was instead considering large energy storage facilities as alternatives in lowering electricity rates and addressing perennial power shortages in the country.
The President made the statement in Limay, Bataan, as he led the inauguration of the 1,000-megawatt nationwide battery energy storage system (BESS) network of San Miguel Global Power (SMGP), the largest such network in Southeast Asia which could store power to be used when demand is high.
“Unfortunately, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was never in operation but you can see the advancements that we have now,” Marcos said. “That was a very, shall we say, involved kind of energy storage system because it was at a very large scale.”
“However … we no longer need to construct all of those facilities. We no longer need to put in that kind of infrastructure. All we need now are these battery farms that we are seeing today,” he said.
The corruption-tainted BNPP, which was built during his late father’s dictatorship, never went into operation due to safety concerns.
‘Full of promise’
A BESS facility is used to store excess power from power plants during off-peak hours.
Once electricity demand increases, the facilities load the stored power back into the grid to augment supply and prevent outages.
It works like a giant uninterruptible power supply (UPS) commonly used in offices and homes which could provide electricity automatically or on demand when an outage occurs due to accidents or weather disturbances and the like.
In his first State of the Nation Address in July last year, the President said it was time for the government to reexamine the country’s approach and policy toward nuclear energy.
But in his speech on Friday at the Limay battery storage facility, about 55 kilometers from the mothballed nuclear plant also in the same town, Marcos said the government now “highly encourages and approves” projects like SMGP’s BESS.
SMGP is the power arm of San Miguel Corp., one of the country’s largest conglomerates.
According to the President, battery farms would be “part of the solution so that we can say that we are competitive now in terms of electricity rates and reliability and availability of power.”
The President pointed out that introducing a storage component into the overall energy infrastructure in the Philippines would help the country’s transition to clean energy.
SMGP’s BESS is “innovative” and “full of promise,” Marcos said.
“It is safe, has zero noise pollution, zero carbon emissions, zero water extraction, and generates zero waste. It also remedies the challenge with wider adoption of renewable sources, which is intermittence,” he said.
BESS technology
“That is why it is extremely encouraging for those of us who are always trying to find ways to: one, increase the supply of power; secondly, decrease the cost of power; and thirdly, improve the mix of traditional sources of power and renewable sources of power,” he added.
Given the increasing generation of renewable energy in the country, Marcos said it would be vital for the government to advance and incorporate an energy storage system (ESS) in its overall energy infrastructure.
“Not only will we be able to generate sufficient, reliable and clean energy, leading to more affordability of energy, and of course, generate jobs for our people—green jobs—in the process,” he said. (Meg Adonis, Nestor Corrales © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
