First Gen chief cites need for gas-battery combo to manage RE’s intermittency

By Myrna M. Velasco – June 29, 2018, 11:41 PM
from Manila Bulletin

With the massive-scale renewable energy (RE) development of 15,300 megawatts that the Philippines has been aiming for, technological solutions that shall be in the combination of flexible gas-fired power plants and battery storage are needed to manage and spare the grid from interruptions that could be triggered by RE’s intermittency predicament.

“Progressive grids need to plan for it, because if you don’t plan for it – you’ll get caught flat-footed. Intermittency – that’s built-in because of all the solar penetration,” First Gen Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Federico R. Lopez has noted.

Federico R. Lopez

The good news then, according to him, is that solutions on the technology front are already out and started thriving in markets, and subsequently re-positioning RE as a cheaper option for consumers and also rendering as myth the “concept of baseload” traditionally fixated on coal plants.

Flexibility that could be provided by gas-fired power plants, because of their fast ramp-up rate, is one of the solutions, although he noted that there are actually a lot of flexibilities that have to be managed in an electricity system.

“There are many solutions to flexibility – it can be seasonal flexibility, it can be hourly, minute and even by the second. And you need an arsenal of solutions to be able to handle that as you move forward,” Lopez stressed.

He indicated that conventionally, “there’s flexible base, and then there’s flexible peak. The flexible base solution could have the likes of San Gabriel plant, flexible peak will be Avion because in the span of minutes, they can be up and running. But then you also need batteries to handle the per minute swings.”

Essentially, he reiterated that “progressive grids need to plan for that this early because it takes time to set up all these solutions.”

Lopez previously indicated that “economically-priced renewable energy is here. It will only get cheaper and in due time, will permeate our lives whether we like it or not. And there is no stopping that.”

Other than battery storage and flexible gas plants, Lopez cited several other technologies and power system tools that can manage the intermittency problem of RE, including high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission networks that expand the geographic coverage of wind and solar to smoothen out variability; ice storage high voltage alternating current (HVAC), pump hydro and flywheel storage.

“When someone tells you that RE is intermittent and makes power grids unstable, know that there are many technically and economically feasible ways to handle these issues, and progressive grids are already incorporating them into their day-to-day operations,” he emphasized.

In time, Lopez further noted that these technological solutions for RE could also eclipse the usefulness of coal plants “because they do not have the needed ramp up flexibility” or not adjustable enough on their cycle of generation to keep pace with unwarranted supply-demand fluctuations in the system.

Lopez quipped that such scenario “begs the question: why do we even need to put up new coal plants? Plants that we already know will be underutilized, whose exorbitant costs will be saddled on to captive electricity consumers” – or those that cannot freely choose yet on their electricity service, such as residential end-users.