FROM CAR FUEL TANKS TO LARGE-SCALE ENERGY STORAGE
What do your car’s fuel tank and large-scale batteries have in common? Answer: They both keep energy tucked away until such time that it needs to be used; when you need to drive off to somewhere or, in the latter’s case, provide back-up power to maintain the power quantity or quality of the electric grid.
Amidst the Philippine energy transition to more variable renewable energy capacities, “energy storage” has become synonymous with energy storage systems (ESS), a relatively new technology that captures and stores surplus energy for later use by the grid. These include large-scale battery energy storage systems or BESS, particularly lithium-ion types, as well as forms of mechanical energy storage like flywheel, pumped hydro, gravity, and compressed air energy storage.
As of January 2025, ESS in the Philippines amounted to 634 megawatts in installed capacity, according to the Department of Energy. These include the 49-megawatt Maco hybrid BESS in Davao de Oro and the 24-megawatt Magat BESS at the Magat hydroelectric power plant in Isabela, accomplished under the SN Aboitiz Power Group joint venture.
In the pipeline, there are over 1,900 megawatts of committed ESS projects, including ones with firm commercial operation dates yet to be determined. Therma Marine Inc.’s groundbreaking for the 48-megawatt Nasipit hybrid BESS in Agusan del Norte has been reported. A BESS in Bay, Laguna, which is set to become the first-ever BESS and geothermal hybrid system in the Philippines, is also underway.
Third round
The third round of the green energy auction (GEA-3) also saw notices of award being given to several projects that total 6,350 megawatts of pumped storage hydro and 300 megawatts of impounding hydro. Future GEAs are also said to focus on integrated renewable energy and ESS (IRESS), which is ideal considering how it can partially offset the variable nature of solar and wind power generation.
Most recently, the Thunder Consortium — which is composed of Aboitiz Renewables, Sumitomo Corporation, and J-POWER — also submitted the highest bid for the privatization of the Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan (CBK) hydroelectric power plant in Laguna, which contains pumped-storage power plants that can help with grid stability, being a flexible and dispatchable source that accommodates the variability of solar and wind sources.
However, energy storage can also be thought of in terms of domes, dams, underground reservoirs, and industrial storage tanks — storage components of coal, hydro, geothermal, and gas power plants, respectively. This is another way of saying that fuel storage is also a form of energy storage. Your car’s fuel tank is energy storage, and so is the LPG tank that’s turned on when you need to cook. In a larger sense, energy storage is ESS, and so are the aforementioned storage components utilized by power producers.
The more traditional storage components are dams and underground reservoirs of hydropower and geothermal power plants, respectively, which have been in operation in the Philippines for decades. Dams, like Magat dam in particular, serve multiple purposes, with the stored water being important to both hydro power generation and irrigation systems for agriculture.
Meanwhile, underground geothermal reservoirs can also be a form of energy storage. After steam is pumped from the reservoir below the Earth’s surface and spins the turbines for the generation of electricity, the hot water or steam can be injected back into the ground, helping to regenerate the steam source.
Industrial storage tanks that store natural gas are also becoming more important as gas is gradually becoming the transition fuel in the energy transition. If not from an indigenous source, natural gas is first converted into liquid form (LNG), then transported in ships, before being reconverted back to gas and fed into the power plant. Due to the very nature of LNG, storing it is certainly more challenging, not to mention the added difficulty of constructing more tanks and other relevant infrastructure like import and regasification facilities to cope with growing power demand.
While ESS tends to be how energy storage is predominantly thought of, especially as society progresses to build its energy system of the future, other forms like domes, dams, underground reservoirs, and industrial storage tanks continue to be important in helping ensure that today’s energy supply needs are met. Closer to home, just picture your car or your kitchen burners or oven, and truly consider where the energy to run them comes from. It’s all a vast and varied system, all designed to keep things running.
2025-07-11T09:43:29Z