Steps forward have been taken for the first pilot deployment of large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) technology in Vietnam, with Honeywell signed up as equipment provider.
The project will be a short-duration BESS of 15MW output and 7.5MWh capacity, to be installed at the site of the 50MWp Khahn Hoa solar PV plant in the south central coastal province of Khahn Hoa.
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It is being developed by AMI AC Renewables, a joint venture (JV) formed by Philippines-headquartered power plant developer AC Energy (ACEN), and Vietnam’s AMI Renewables, a renewable energy development platform.
ACEN said earlier this week (9 May) that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed with US-headquartered engineering and automation company Honeywell to work on the project, including integration with the operation of the solar farm.
The purpose of the pilot project is to demonstrate the commercial viability of energy storage in Vietnam, a country which has rapidly adopted solar PV in the past few years, but is yet to start doing the same for batteries, or other forms of energy storage technology.
With that in mind, the project received grant funding for just under US$3 million from the US Consulate General’s US Mission Vietnam towards its costs in October 2021, as reported by Energy-Storage.news at the time.
Energy storage is a key technology in the US$15.5 billion Just Energy Transition Partnership which was signed between the Southeast Asian country and a host of international partners including the UK, US, European Union and Japan. It aims to accelerate uptake of renewables and decarbonisation in the country.
Vietnam is targeting net zero emissions by 2050. Expected commercial operations date for the Khahn Hoa project was not given in an ACEN release this week, or in previous communications about the project.
Companies involved have experience in field
ACEN is a subsidiary of Philippine conglomerate Ayala Group and is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). ACEN has more than 4,200MW of capacity in its generation portfolio of mostly renewables assets, across three Southeast Asian countries, as well as in Australia and India and is targeting it to be 100% renewable energy by 2025.
AMI Renewables and ACEN also built the site’s solar PV plant along with another 30MW PV plant in Vietnam, as well as having a 252MW wind farm under construction in the country. Back in the Philippines, ACEN delivered that country’s first-ever large-scale solar-plus-storage project, completed in early 2022.
Meanwhile Honeywell launched its own BESS solutions platform in 2021, including integrated controls, monitoring and forecasting capabilities. The company had however already been active in the battery storage space since 2019, including work on some large commercial and industrial (C&I) projects in Ontario, Canada and Ukraine’s first-ever grid-scale BESS.
In mid-2021, Energy-Storage.news and Honeywell presented the sponsored webinar, ‘Bankable energy storage for the Asia-Pacific region’ – one of a series of three focusing on different global regions – which you can watch here. More recently the company has rolled out its own C&I energy-as-a-service offering and is launching its own proprietary flow battery tech.
Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 1st Energy Storage Summit Asia, 11-12 July 2023 in Singapore. The event will help give clarity on this nascent, yet quickly growing market, bringing together a community of credible independent generators, policymakers, banks, funds, off-takers and technology providers. For more information, go to the website.
