The bundling of solar and tidal power with recharging hydrogen fuels will provide steady microgrid electricity to poor residents of select islands and remote areas in the Philippines. This innovative strategy was presented by the head of a new renewable energy company on June 15, 2022 before an Asian assembly of climate, energy and economic experts.
Antonio A. Ver, co-chairman and CEO of Energies PH, Inc. (EPHI) told the Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF) 2022 that it launches a series of firsts in the Philippines with its “Tidal In-stream Energy Conversion Power technology (TISEC) Project” bundled with the “Nationwide Microgrid Program” and “Recharging Hydrogen Fuels” in Capul island in San Bernardino strait, and adjoining islands in Northern Samar up to Calintaan Island in Matnog, Sorsogon.
Ver said the newly launched company, EPHI, is going in this direction after it analyzed that the best way to use limited private funds is to bring power where it is most needed in the country — the poor in the hinterlands.
He noted that the making of the Capul ocean power plant was envisioned as early as 12 years ago, and its firsts in advancing ocean power technology were without “palliatives and euphemisms”.
“Going to Capul is fulfillment of the mission to help the poorest of the poor escape from the unending vicious poverty cycle in Samar, in the Visayas, in the Philippines,” Ver told the ACEF 2022.
ACEF gathers the clean energy community to speed up the low-carbon energy transition in Asia and the Pacific through the sharing of proven and new ideas. The forum website states that ACEF operationalizes the Asian Development Bank’s 2021 Energy Policy to promote low-carbon transition in the region “while supporting universal access to reliable and affordable energy services”.
Ver told ACEF participants that he held back on talking about barriers of development, the disappointments, and frustrations in the introduction of clean energy innovations but chose to focus on “mission to be accomplished”. He said the company is set to select in September the engineering-procurement-construction company to lay down and deploy the first-ever tidal power in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia.
Strong tidal currents are found in straits which join two sea areas where different tidal activities happen at the two ends. The San Bernardino strait has strong currents flowing from the Samar Sea and the Philippine Sea.
He also expressed plans to set up in Siquijor, Mindoro, Masbate, Catanduanes, Palawan and twelve 12 more sites in the Philippines “to raise the national Gross Domestic Product, reach far flung barangays down to their sitios delivering electricity, education and public health awareness”.
Ver was founder and first elected president of Asia-Pacific Basin for Energy Strategies which is a Think-tank on Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC).
EPHI, with a combined track record and experience of more than 50 years, chartered in the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 27, 2021. It is up for listing next year. Its project company San Bernardino Ocean Power Corporation achieved its Confirmation of Commerciality for the first ever tidal power plant from the Department of Energy on July 14, 2020, despite the pandemic.
ACEF 2022 discussion themes covered policy reforms, business models for innovative low-carbon technologies, integrated approaches for cross-sectoral benefits and financing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) actions.
