Aboitiz Power Corp. (AboitizPower) said Monday unit Therma Power Inc.’s wholly-owned subsidiary East Asia Utilities Corp (EAUC) will break ground for its 30-megawatt (MW) hybrid battery energy storage system (BESS) project within the Mactan Economic Zone.
The groundbreaking for the project, targeted for commissioning by the first half of 2026, marks a strategic move to support grid stability in the fast-growing Visayas region.
The project will be one of the first large-scale energy storage systems in Central Visayas and is expected to help improve the reliability of the power supply amid rising demand from industries, businesses, and new locators within the economic zone.
“This project will allow us to respond to imbalances in real-time, helping the grid absorb fluctuations and minimize disruptions,” said AboitizPower Transition Business Group chief operating officer for operated assets Aldo Ramos.
“EAUC has consistently proven its ability to provide crucial ancillary reserves to the Luzon and Visayas grid when needed. The integration of BESS with our existing facility will materially enhance this capability, enabling faster and more efficient responses,” Ramos said.
The hybrid BESS serves as an ancillary service or back-up power, storing surplus electricity to be released to the power grid when demand needs to be supplemented, helping maintain grid quality and reliability.
“Investors heavily consider the reliability of power supply, and so we work to efficiently facilitate these innovative energy initiatives to support residing businesses and encourage more investments in the Mactan Economic Zone,” said Tereso Panga, director-general of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA).
“The EAUC hybrid BESS will help in the stability of the power supply, and more so as the share of variable renewable energy increases in our power mix,” Panga said.
Designed for high availability, hybrid BESS are capable of operating through maintenance cycles to maintain consistent grid support. Hybrid battery facilities offer rapid ramp-up and response times, enabling them to address grid imbalances within seconds. With fewer moving parts and no fuel dependency, these systems also benefit from significantly lower operations and maintenance requirements compared with conventional thermal generation.
In the Visayas, coal-fired power plants such as AboitizPower’s Therma Visayas, Inc. (TVI) remain part of the region’s dispatchable generation capacity, which helps maintain grid stability alongside increasing energy integration.
The Department of Energy projects that the share of variable renewable energy such as solar and wind capacities will rise to 16 percent to 28 percent in the Philippines by 2031. In this context, energy storage will be critical for managing fluctuations and enabling even higher levels of variable renewable energy integration.
