The Department of Energy is looking to tap the smart grid technology to address the technical challenges faced by wind power developers in order to ensure that some P211 billion worth of indicative projects will push through starting this year until 2030.
According to the National Renewable Energy Plan (NREP), the use of the smart grid technology will demonstrate how it can effectively and efficiently integrate intermittent wind power generating facilities into the three main grids. That move may help encourage investors to push through with the 57 projects that can bring in 2,345 megawatts in additional capacities.
Admittedly, there will be times when wind power facilities, as well as other plants powered by alternative energy sources, may not deliver their promised capacities. That has been a cause for concern among investors. These facilities can render the grid unstable due to voltage fluctuations, when the volume of electricity flowing through a transmission system and to the grid may drop at given times to levels that can cause damage to the facilities and the entire system.
But the NREP believes the smart grid technology can solve the potential problems these facilities may cause.
Smart grid refers to the incorporation of information technology into an existing power network, making two-way information exchange between suppliers and consumers possible. In the Philippines, there are only a few projects tapping the smart grid technology that is now being pilot-tested.
The smart grid may become operational as early as 2015. The government is also pushing for a policy study on the mainstreaming of the smart grid.
Apart from the smart grid, the government also seeks to issue a technology roadmap for the wind sector—the Wind Turbine Technology Roadmap.
This is intended to guide the DoE in the local adoption of wind energy technologies through intensive research, development, demonstration and deployment.
The Philippines is said to have good wind resource potential of 76,600 MW across 10,000 identified sites nationwide, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.