Sungrow has announced the commissioning of the Citicore Solar Batangas 1 project at Lumbangan, in Tuy, Batangas — the first phase of a battery programme Citicore Renewable Energy Corporation has set at 1.5 GWh, and, the companies say, the first solar plant in the Philippines with large-scale battery storage to supply power around the clock. The start of commercial operation was marked by a ceremony attended by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., the Department of Energy and Citicore.

The plant pairs 197 MWp of solar panels with 125 MW and 320 MWh of storage running on Sungrow's PowerTitan 2.0. Batteries earn their place next to solar because the two do different jobs: panels make power when the sun is up, while demand continues into the evening, so storage moves energy across the day. The companies describe the resulting supply as baseload renewable energy, meaning power available continuously rather than only when the weather allows.

From signed agreement to switched-on plant

The commissioning follows the 1.5 GWh supply agreement the two companies signed in December 2024. The technical claim attached to this site is speed: a grid-forming, or virtual synchronous generator, commissioning sequence carried out off-grid in two days, which the companies present as a record. The Department of Energy said the facility uses advanced battery technology to address one of renewable energy's persistent problems, an inconsistent supply.

Two figures should not be confused. The 1.5 GWh belongs to the whole programme; this first phase is 320 MWh, a fraction of it, so the headline total means something only if later phases are built. Baseload is also limited by how much energy the batteries hold and how often they can be cycled, not by the label. The two-day commissioning is a speed claim about a single site, and the useful test is how the plant performs across a full year.