The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has cleared SMCGP Philippines Energy Storage Co. Ltd. (SMCGP Storage) of the San Miguel group to connect its 20-megawatt (MW) battery energy storage system (BESS) facility in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental to the Visayas Grid.
In an issuance recently released by the ERC, SMCGP Storage – a unit of SMC Global Power Holdings – was provided the authority to develop dedicated point-to-point limited transmission facilities to connect the Kabankalan BESS to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines’ (NGCP) substation in the same city.
San Miguel had petitioned before the commission that it operate and maintain the facility, but was denied. Instead, it was given to NGCP to “ensure and maintain reliability, adequacy, security, stability, and integrity of the national grid.” The connection from the substation to the grid will be through a 342.7 meter-138 kilovolt transmission line.
The Kabankalan BESS uses lithium-ion as its storage technology.
First announced in 2014, the project is meant to provide ancillary services or reserve power to NGCP, particularly regulating reserve (RR) or secondary reserve.
Based on the Philippine Grid Code, RR refers to the generation capacity allocated solely to cover inter and intra-hour variations in power demand. It also is used to address variations from power generation schedules and hourly forecasts.
SMC Global Power announced last year that it is developing 31 BESS projects nationwide worth $1 billion and with a total capacity of 1,000MW. The company plans to switch on 690MW of these facilities early this year.
