Don’t we all love a reliable and handy power bank, especially when our mobile phone is almost running on empty and we don’t have access to electricity just yet or, worse, when an outage suddenly hits?
Now imagine something like that but on a grand scale – a battery energy storage system (BESS) that could help power millions of households all over the country, especially now that we’re experiencing an energy crisis.
Tycoon Henry ‘Big Boy’ Sy Jr. is pitching this as a fast, practical and doable solution to the country’s power woes: allowing the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines to put up a chain of BESS facilities nationwide which NGCP could tap when certain areas don’t have enough power supply.
Project Airbag
Big Boy, vice chairman of NGCP, remained in his trademark cool and calm demeanor, but could not conceal the urgency of the situation as he discussed his proposal during a rare media chat last week.
Actually, you’d know a situation is bleak, even desperate, and already taking a heavy toll on the economy when tycoons start speaking out and pitching their own solutions.
Big Boy wasted no time and went straight to his point – the power crisis and how to solve it.
He calls it Project Airbag, perhaps because we are in an emergency and his proposal can provide fast-response storage, which in turn would strengthen grid flexibility, resilience and energy access.
Under Project Airbag, NGCP would put up an initial pipeline of 1,850 megawatts of BESS capacity. Of this, 850 MW are already ongoing in six sites across the country and 1,000 MW for 12 sites still for assessment. In the next five years, this could reach 10,000 MW.
A battery storage stores available electricity and releases it when the system is under pressure. It gives NGCP an additional transmission-side tool to support the system during short-duration shortages.
Putting up BESS facilities is faster than new generation can be built – less than a year, Big Boy said, compared to a power plant which could take up to seven years, sometimes even longer, to build.
The project is intended to help address immediate system pressures, prepare the grid for tighter supply conditions associated with the 2027 El Niño and provide longer-term flexibility as the country’s generation mix continues to evolve.
Big Boy said the priority is the Visayas, which is currently experiencing blackouts because of tight supply conditions and simultaneous generator outages.
A wider grid for 2027 El Niño
The battery rollout, however, is not limited to the Visayas, Big Boy said.
El Niño, he said, poses a risk to the whole country as it creates a foreseeable risk of reduced hydroelectric output, particularly in areas where generation depends heavily on rainfall and reservoir levels. The risk is national, which supports the deployment of storage in other parts of the grid as well.
Batteries can then work during periods of reduced hydro output or other system stress conditions.
In all, Big Boy said, Project Airbag is a practical intervention that NGCP can pursue within its own sphere while longer-term supply solutions are still being developed.
It’s not supposed to be a threat to generation companies because batteries do not create electricity and cannot substitute for adequate generation over prolonged periods.
The underlying structural requirement remains sufficient, dependable power generation.
The deployment is therefore intended as a proactive resilience measure rather than a reaction after supply conditions have already deteriorated.
Power producers react
During the chat, I told Big Boy that power generators may not like his idea.
True enough, the Philippine Independent Power Producers Association Inc. (PIPPA) immediately raised concerns on the proposal.
PIPPA said its concern is primarily who owns these batteries and how their cost is recovered, not with the purpose of the BESS itself.
‘By the description alone, supplying energy during shortages and peaks and providing fast-response reserve support are the services that generation companies and BESS operators already offer competitively in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market and under power supply agreements and ancillary services procurement agreements.
‘PIPPA respectfully submits that NGCP ownership of such facilities, with their cost recovered through regulated transmission rates, runs contrary to the structure and intent of Republic Act 9136, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001, and to the DOE’s policy on energy storage systems,’ PIPPA said in a position paper.
Reacting to this, Big Boy said laws were intended to help the people.
The NGCP, in a separate briefing paper on Project Airbag, likewise said that new generation projects take significantly longer to develop, finance, approve, construct and commission.
Airbag can provide a bridge during that development period by reducing immediate system vulnerability.
It’s really short-term transmission relief supporting – not replacing – long-term generation investment.
In a way, Big Boy said, it’s about democratizing access to energy, given that the current supply challenge is acute and pervasive.
Additional supply, he said, must therefore come from as many viable sources as possible.
The objective is not to concentrate or monopolize participation in the energy sector but to disperse the burden of addressing the country’s supply requirements by enabling more participants and resources to contribute, NGCP said.
‘We really have to do something before it’s too late,’ he said.
Will electricity prices go down? Big Boy is confident that it will.
And for that alone, it’s worth a try.