Minigrids to speed up total PH electrification
Credit to Author: JORDEENE B. LAGARE| Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2019 16:19:44 +0000
Minigrids can help the government accelerate its goal of energizing every household in the Philippines, an official of the Renewable Energy Association of the Philippines (REAP) said on Monday.
“Minigrid system will play an important role in ensuring and accelerating the total electrification of the country. Being an archipelagic country, centralized power generation can be challenging if not costly,” REAP President Erel Narida said.
Narida said Sabang Renewable Energy Corp.’s (SREC) hybrid power plant in Palawan province, which went online in April this year, will be suitable for electrification. The project is comprised of a 1.4-megawatt peak (MWp) solar photovoltaic (PV) plant with a 2.3-megawatt per hour battery storage system and 1.2-megawatt diesel generators to power its 14-circuit-kilometer distribution facility.
SREC — an RE developer composed of WEnergy Global, Gigawatt Power Inc. and Vivant Corp. — earlier said this system has allowed them to provide an average of 50 percent of clean energy to the grid.
This is the first hybrid-powered microgrid in the country approved by the Department of Energy (DoE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission and is also the first such microgrid in Southeast Asia.
Narida said the consortium has showcased such integration or hybridization of RE, specifically solar, battery and diesel genset as back-up for power generation which, according to him, is “more socially and environmentally acceptable due to reduced running time of diesel genset, and primary source of power is RE.”
“Very encouraging for local minigrid developers to follow suit. The next challenge is to accelerate replication with more participation of local SMEs (Small and medium-sized enterprises) in the RE market space. The easing of regulations, access to funds , adaption of new RE technologies on integration and understanding the market both economics and social dynamics on island mini grid are key factors that we have to look into to accelerate this development,” he added.
Citing data from the Department of Energy (DoE), Narida reported that about 88.3 percent or 2.78 million households still have no access to electricity as of December 2017.
“Most of these households are located in Visayas and Mindanao, mostly small islands, either underserved using expensive diesel genset (generator sets) with limited operating or totally unserved.
Minigrid system can utilize the indigenous, new and renewable energy like solar, wind, hydro, biomass or ocean in power generation that will eventually reduce our dependence on diesel or imported energy,” he added.
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