SMC Global keen on battery storage

MANILA, Philippines — SMC Global Power Holdings Corp., the power subsidiary of conglomerate San Miguel Corp., is prioritizing putting up battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities to enable the use of more renewable capacities in the grid.

SMC Global Power is building a total of 31 BESS facilities with a total capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW).

The battery facilities, which will minimize power wastage and redirect otherwise unused capacity to remote areas, are regarded as the best and most sustainable technical solution to the country’s power quality and reliability issues as these are seen to balance and improve access to power nationwide, according to the company.

It will also make viable use of intermittent renewable sources such as solar and wind by efficiently storing the energy for electricity, it said.

“The major challenge of renewable power everywhere in the world is intermittence. With renewables, the ability to generate power is always limited. You cannot generate solar power at nighttime, or when weather conditions block sunlight. You cannot produce wind power when there’s no wind. When there’s a drought, you also can’t produce hydropower. Battery storage is key to mitigating all these issues,” SMC president and chief executive officer Ramon Ang said.

“That is why we have prioritized putting up the country’s first battery facilities and first and largest battery network to date. It is key to enabling the use of more renewable capacities in the grid, and a critical part of our phased transition and expansion to cleaner and renewable power,” he said.

SMC Global Power is also expanding the scope of its nationwide forestation and carbon capture program to cover areas where its battery storage facilities are installed or are being put up.

These include Albay, Bohol, Cagayan, Cebu, Davao del Norte, Davao de Oro, Isabela, Laguna, Leyte, Misamis Oriental, Pampanga, Pangasinan and Tarlac.

Ang said foresting the areas around its new BESS facilities also makes sense because the facilities themselves are a major step to strengthening the entry of renewable energy capacities in the future.

“Reforestation is one of the major sustainability priorities of the entire San Miguel Group. While we have had many similar efforts initiated by our various subsidiaries in the past, SMCGP has taken it to another level, planting a record five million trees in just under three years, with consistently high survival rates,” he said.

Ang said SMC Global Power’s transition away from coal power toward cleaner liquefied natural gas (LNG) power and renewable energy is being pursued responsibly, “without compromising our developing economy’s growing need for reliable and affordable power, and while also continuing effort to bring basic electrification to the entire country.”