Fluence has completed the commissioning of two large-scale battery projects in the Philippines, following similar announcements by rivals ABB and Wärtsilä.

ABB will add at least 80MW of battery storage to Philippines energy company SMC Global Power Holdings’ planned US$1 billion portfolio in the country.

Power and energy systems technology group Wärtsilä has completed work on two large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in the Philippines.

The pilot project, which comprises two 1MW components, has been billed by its backers as the country’s first grid-scale distributed battery system.

Questions around who should own, operate and ultimately benefit from the deployment of energy storage systems could soon be resolved in the Philippines after the government Department of Energy issued a set of draft guidelines.

The Senate committee examining a house bill granting a PV mini-grid franchise to renewable energy firm Solar Philippinnes has been debating the reach of the franchise as well as its exclusivity, with the discussion to reconvene in May after the general election.

The economics of rural electrification using microgrids should be considered an investment for the future, akin to how Silicon Valley tech providers plough money into initially loss-leading products and services, the chief of developer and manufacturer Solar Philippines has said.

Solar modules and deep cycle batteries have been stolen from seven secondary public schools in two municipalities in southern Palawan, in the Philippines.

A 48MW grid-scale battery project looks to be under development at an unnamed location in the Philippines, local news outlets have reported.