The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has issued final authority to the nine ancillary services procurement agreements of National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) with the units of San Miguel Corp. (SMC), ACEN Corp. and Aboitiz Power Corp.
The ERC, , in its notice of commission action, granted final approval for NGCP to implement its ASPAs subject to certain conditions and applicable rates.
“All the contracts were subjected to a uniform evaluation standard we developed per type of service provided. This was based on an ADB [Asian Development Bank] study on framework for costing of ancillary services (AS) which we updated to current costing and specific data on each AS plant that we have on file (financial and operational),” ERC chairperson Monalisa Dimalanta said.
Bulk of the approvals were for NGCP’s ASPA with San Miguel Global Power Holdings Inc.’s battery energy storage systems namely with Universal Power Solutions, Inc. (UPSI) – San Manuel BESS, UPSI – Lamao BESS, UPSI – Bataan BESS, UPSI – Concepcion BESS, UPSI – Jasaan BESS and SMGP subsidiary Masinloc Power Partners Co. Ltd (MPPCL).
SMC is building around 1,000 MW of BESS capacity to address the intermittency of renewable energy sources in the power grid.
The regulator also approved NGCP’s agreements with Giga Ace 4, Inc. (GA4) and Ingrid Power Holdings, Inc., both led by ACEN of the Ayala Group.
It also approved with final authority NGCP’s ASPA with AboitizPower subsidiary Therma Marine, Inc. (TMI) (for Mobile 2).
“The details of the evaluation will be provided in the individual decisions to be issued by the Commission for each contract once drafting is completed,” Dimalanta said.
Ancillary services (AS) are support services used to balance and stabilize the grid during power supply-demand imbalance.
The ERC and the Department of Energy has directed NGCP to secure AS or regulating and contingency reserves to ensure grid integrity and stability.