Infrastructure investor Actis has entered a strategic partnership with the companies behind a 3.5GW solar, 4.5GWh BESS project in the Philippines, one of the largest in the world.
The firm has agreed to partner with utility Manila Electric Company (Meralco) and its subsidiary, Solar Philippines New Energy Corporation, to invest in the Terra Solar Project.
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The project plans to pair 3.5GWp of solar PV capacity with a 4.5GWh battery energy storage system (BESS). It could be the largest in the world by capacity, in terms of solar, BESS as well as both technologies combined.
Solar Philippines New Energy Corporation currently owns 100% of the project, and it wasn’t revealed how large a stake Actis plans to take or what the value of that investment will be.
In August, the Philippines government fast-tracked the development of Terra Solar by giving it a ‘green lane certificate’. It is hoped its first phase will come online by February 2026, though that size of that phase hasn’t been disclosed.
The current largest BESS operational today is 3,287MWh, in Nevada, but larger ones are planned. That includes one by IPP Grenergy, in Chile, which is planned as a 4.1GWh BESS system.
The grid-scale energy storage market in the Philippines was a topic of discussion at the Energy Storage Summit Asia 2024 last month, put on by our publisher Solar Media. A panel discussion went over challenges and opportunities in the country, (Premium access).
Actis is one of the most active global infrastructure investors in renewables. Its activity has primarily been in the solar PV space, which you can read about on our sister site PV Tech, but it is starting to foray into large-scale storage with recent capacity market wins for BESS projects in Japan.
