The Philippines' battery storage buildout has found its next anchor project. ACEN Corp, the renewable energy platform of the Ayala Group, has lent PHP9 billion (roughly US$144 million) to subsidiaries within the group for solar and battery storage development — with PHP6 billion of that total directed to Sanmar Solar to construct the SanMar Battery Energy Storage System in Zambales province.
The SanMar BESS is a 500MW/1,000MWh standalone system to be installed at the site of an existing 585MW solar PV plant. Notably, the land it occupies was previously idle and unusable, coated in lahar debris left behind by a volcanic eruption — a reminder that storage can unlock sites that generation alone cannot.
A province becoming a national hub. In July, ACEN said it is turning Zambales into one of the country's largest renewable energy hubs, with the SanMar Solar and Palauig Solar projects alongside 775MW/1,660MWh of BESS under construction in the province. The company reported a 17% year-on-year increase in renewable generation and a 41% increase in revenues in the Philippines in its H1 2026 results — with the Philippines remaining its largest market by far, alongside portfolios in Australia and India.
Why the Philippines moves faster than its neighbours. The country has raced to become Southeast Asia's leading battery storage market, largely because its market design allows asset owners to stack revenues from multiple applications rather than relying on a single income stream. The policy layer has reinforced the trend: national energy storage framework legislation passed earlier this year, and in February the Department of Energy instructed large-scale renewable plant developers to integrate storage into their proposals. ACEN itself inaugurated the country's first hybrid solar-plus-storage plant in 2022 — 120MW of solar with two 20MW/40MWh batteries — and the pipeline has scaled by an order of magnitude since.
The pattern to watch. Financing is increasingly structured at group level, with the platform lending to project subsidiaries — a signal that storage pipelines in the region are now large enough to be funded as portfolio assets rather than one-off projects.
Southeast Asia is moving from pilot projects to gigawatt-hour procurement, and the Philippines is showing how market design — multi-application revenue stacking plus a storage mandate for new renewables — can accelerate deployment faster than subsidy-led markets. For suppliers, distributors and EPCs active in the region, the practical implication is that demand is shifting from single-container orders to repeat, portfolio-scale programmes with financing attached.
Projects at this scale reward suppliers who can deliver consistently, not just cheaply: repeatable quality, honest cycle-life ratings and documentation that satisfies local certification all become procurement criteria once portfolios are financed. EXLIPORC manufactures LFP storage across residential and commercial platforms — including the 314Ah LVB16WTC 16kWh system (8,000+ cycles at 80% DoD, active balancing BMS, WiFi/APP monitoring and aerosol fire protection) and 261kWh liquid-cooled C&I cabinets — and supports distributor and EPC programmes across Southeast Asia with OEM service from a 2-unit minimum. Planning a Philippines or Vietnam project? Talk to us: gina@exliporcpower.com · www.exliporcpower.com.
