Miller places $2.3 billion BESS insurance policy in the Philippines

By Rebecca Delaney

April 11 - (The Insurer) - Miller disclosed on Thursday that it has placed a $2.3 billion insurance policy for what it described as "the world's largest BESS project".

The broker hailed the placement as evidence of the evolving maturity of co-located solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) projects. The policy was placed by Miller's renewable energy and environmental technology team in London and the power and construction team in Singapore.

"The team needed to create a market for this risk, as the placement exceeded the currently available limits of commercial capacity for Philippine cat exposure in the construction reinsurance market," said Miller.

"Through the collaborative efforts of our offices in Singapore and London, we successfully attracted over 30 insurers to the programme and placed the largest cat aggregate for a renewables project in the Philippines."

Construction all-risk reinsurance cover is provided by Swiss Re Asia.

The Terra Solar project in the Philippines required particularly comprehensive nat cat coverage owing to typhoon risk in the region.

The facility is expected to deliver clean energy to an estimated 2.4 million households, and will deliver a guaranteed 850MW of electrical power to the grid.

It is projected that the facility will help the Philippines to avoid 3.6 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year, Miller said. It also aligns with the nation's target to source 35% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030, and 50% by 2040.

Miller said the project demonstrates that grid-scale integrated solar and BESS facilities are "com(ing) of age".

Historically, the intermittent nature of solar energy has been an obstacle to more widespread adoption. Advances in battery storage technology and scale have helped to address this issue.

"Solar PV combined with large-scale BESS enables a co-located solar/BESS project to provide reliable baseload power, significantly improving overall grid supply and demand management," Miller explained.

"The space requirements of these projects remain a constraint, but the addition of HVDC cables and other grid connections to enable remote delivery of generated power has increased their flexibility. Such co-located solar/BESS grid-scale systems are now coming of age, with several projects under development globally."