Philippines Energy Company Junk Coal Plant & Break Ground on Latest BESS

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Coal is dying a slow death in the central Philippines, and giant batteries are moving into the neighborhood to take its place.

The Visayas power grid has suffered from chronic reliability issues for years, leaving the province of Cebu vulnerable to rolling blackouts during peak periods. As regional authorities push to integrate more renewable energy into an aging network, energy companies are shifting investments from fossil fuels to utility-scale energy storage.

Aboitiz Power Corporation broke ground July 1 on a 60-megawatt standalone battery energy storage system in the City of Naga, located in southern Cebu. The new facility is being built inside the Naga Power Plant Complex, a site originally developed in the 1980s that once housed coal and diesel units. Those legacy thermal units have been entirely decommissioned and demolished to clear a path for the clean energy hub.

The project features an initial energy capacity of 120 megawatt-hours and is designed to operate independently rather than being tied to a specific power plant. By absorbing excess power from the grid during low-demand windows and discharging it within milliseconds when supply drops, the installation will act as a primary contingency reserve. Company executives expect the facility to reach commercial operations by October 2027.

Celso Caballero III, the president of the AboitizPower Transition Business Group, noted during the ceremony that the project represents a tangible shift away from centralized fossil generation toward flexible grid infrastructure. The company is also completing a separate 30-megawatt hybrid battery system at the East Asia Utilities Corporation complex in the nearby Mactan Economic Zone. That installation has reached mechanical completion and is awaiting final regulatory clearance before going online to insulate local industrial zones from voltage fluctuations.

The Aboitiz projects are part of a broader battery rush across the central Philippines.

The Philippine Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) reported it is currently reviewing 17 separate applications for energy storage solutions across the Visayas and Mindanao regions. The regulatory momentum follows a direct mandate from the Department of Energy (DOE) requiring market participants to deploy at least 170 megawatts of storage capacity across the islands of Cebu, Negros, and Panay to absorb the rising influx of solar and wind installations.

The Naga development represents the second major battery deployment for the company within Cebu province. In the nearby Mactan Economic Zone in Lapu-Lapu City, the company is finishing work on a 30-megawatt hybrid battery installation situated at the East Asia Utilities Corporation complex. That project has reached mechanical completion and is currently undergoing the regulatory clearance process before entering formal commercial operations, where it will be tasked with protecting local industrial locators from voltage drops and momentary interruptions.

These regional projects are part of a broader corporate expansion into energy storage, with the company now managing a pipeline of more than 10 battery storage installations spread across the major island groups of the Philippines. The overall strategy splits these assets between active, fully commissioned facilities and at least six separate projects that are currently under construction or in advanced stages of field development.

Among the company’s established operational assets is the Maco facility in Davao de Oro, which features a 49-megawatt hybrid battery system. The Maco project served as an early regional proof of concept for integrating large scale storage with existing thermal assets to manage local grid stability in Mindanao. Further north in Luzon, the company has deployed storage capacity at the Magat hydroelectric complex in Ramon, Isabela, through its joint venture company, SN Aboitiz Power, which operates in partnership with Scatec. The Magat storage footprint includes a 24-megawatt battery system for its first phase, supplemented by a 16-megawatt installation dedicated to its second phase, both optimized to provide rapid response ancillary services that complement the shifting output of the associated river turbines.

The next wave of construction is heavily focused on co-locating storage assets with existing renewable energy infrastructure. In the mountainous province of Benguet, the joint venture is advancing two distinct projects that will add a combined 80 megawatts of storage capacity to the northern Luzon grid. These include a 40-megawatt battery installation at the Ambuklao Hydroelectric Power Plant and a matching 40-megawatt system at the Binga Hydroelectric Power Plant. Both systems are designed to bid directly into the national electricity reserves market, providing the fast acting frequency regulation needed to smooth out grid transmission as more commercial solar arrays come online across Luzon.

Concurrently, work continues in the southern islands on a 48-megawatt hybrid battery facility located in Nasipit, Agusan del Norte. That project, which broke ground in 2025, is aimed at reinforcing transmission reliability across northern Mindanao, a region that has faced localized distribution constraints despite an overall surplus of generating capacity.

The aggressive buildout by major generation firms comes as the Energy Regulatory Commission reviews 17 independent applications for energy storage solutions across the Visayas and Mindanao regions. This regulatory activity follows an explicit directive from the Department of Energy mandating the strategic deployment of at least 170 megawatts of battery capacity across the islands of Panay, Negros, and Cebu to prevent the frequent localized dropouts that have hampered regional manufacturing.

Other private operators are also moving quickly to capture market share in the Visayas storage sector. Meralco PowerGen Corporation, through its subsidiary Toledo Energy Development Corporation, recently energized the initial phase of its own battery project in western Cebu. The 25-megawatt, 56-megawatt-hour facility uses advanced lithium-ion cells supplied by Contemporary Amperex Technology Company Limited. The Toledo asset is the first battery installation in the Visayas certified to sustain its full rated output for two consecutive hours before needing to recharge, and the developers are already planning a second phase to double the site’s footprint by mid-2027.