SMC unit ready to deploy BESS facilities

BY LENIE LECTURA – JUNE 30, 2022
from Business Mirror

The power business of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) is now ready to deploy 500megawatt hour (MWh) of battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities out of the 31 planned BESS for nationwide rollout.

“We now have an installed storage capacity of 500 MWh that are ready for deployment any time. We hope to complete even more facilities, and bring our total capacity to 700 MWh by the end of this year,” said SMC President Ramon S. Ang in a social media post.

The company has already started its transition to cleaner energy with its ongoing construction of 31 BESS facilities, with a total capacity of 1,000 MWh, all over the country. The rest of the BESS facilities are in various stages of development, “but we are looking to complete all 31 facilities with a total storage capacity of 1,000MWh within the next 12 months,” he added.

The BESS represent SMC’s full-scale solution to fix power quality issues in the grid. With the integration of the BESS into the grid, Ang said this would improve the power quality and help address the intermittent nature of renewables.

“We believe this, and other bridge technologies, will allow us to truly achieve a just and inclusive transition to a clean energy future that will not only sustain our economic recovery and growth, but will also benefit both our environment and many Filipinos,” Ang said. Earlier, SMC said it was dropping plans to put up new coal-fired power plants, despite new technologies that make them cleaner. Ang said this is a company direction that is in line with all the major sustainability initiatives undertaken these past years.

SMC’s power unit, SMC Global Power Holdings Corp., will put up liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plants in several areas.

Worth up to $1.02 billion, the power firm plans to put a 600-MW LNG Combined Cycle Power Plant Project  in Barangays Poblacion and Looc, Lapu-Lapu, Cebu. Its commercial operation is slated in the second quarter of 2024.

Also, it plans to put up a 1,300-MW LNG combined cycle plant in Batangas City, which will provide clean and stable power to Manila Electric Co. over the next 20 years, beginning 2024. The estimated project cost is P18.5 billion.