Wind energy blows strong in the Philippines

October 16, 2009 9:32 AM | 63 Comments | 1 TrackBack

by Dennis Posadas The recently held GTZ symposium on renewable energy held last October 8 at the Fully Booked in Bonifacio High Street was an interesting example of how investors and the public are now interacting with our new Renewable Energy Act. The passage of the 2008 Renewable Energy Act of the Philippines has paved the way for an increase in investments in the renewable energy sector. One of the areas that have benefited is the wind energy sector. It is estimated that the Philippines theoretically has around 76,000 MW in wind energy capacity, based on studies conducted by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Philippines Department of Energy. It was reported in the Inquirer.net that the Department of Energy last September awarded three companies four new wind energy service contracts—Energy Development Corp. (PSE: EDC) for its planned 86-MW wind farm in Burgos, Ilocos Norte; UPC Asia Corp. for its 50-MW wind project in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte; and PetroEnergy Resources Corp., which bagged two contracts for a 30-MW project in Sual, Pangasinan and a 30-MW project in Nabas, Aklan. Also, Energy Logics Philippines Inc.’s pre-commercial contract for a 120-MW wind farm in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte, was converted to a wind energy service contract. Several joint ventures between local businessmen and foreign companies and investors have also been announced in the local dailies, among those that have been reported include the Alterenergy Partners joint venture with Eurus Energy Japan and Korea East West Power Co. to identify projects in the 30 to 40 MW range; and the French wind turbine manufacturer Vergnet Group, said to be looking for joint venture partners. The rule of thumb given is that each megawatt of capacity costs around USD $2m to 2.5m dollars. At present, aside from small isolated micro-wind installations in remote communities, the largest one at present is the 33MW wind farm in Bangui Bay, Ilocos Norte run by the Northwind Power Corporation, which contributes only 0.21% of the total electricity generated in the country, that is when the wind is blowing. The 7,100 islands of the Philippines make it difficult to make electricity available in many areas, particularly those that are isolated from the main electric grid. Most large islands with large populations, such as Luzon, Panay, Cebu, Mindanao, and others have their own generation, distribution and utility companies to service their areas. However, smaller islands with sparse populations or mountainous areas are a particular challenge. In these cases, sometimes the only practical solution is to use renewable energy power sources (e.g. wind, solar, biomass) or diesel powered generators. Because wind, like solar, is an intermittent energy source, there has to be a means of storage to compensate for times when it is not generating power. In isolated off-grid areas, for smaller wind systems, this normally means a battery. In countries like the U.S., in the Texas Panhandle for example, T. Boone Pickens’s backup of choice is a natural gas turbine. But for the Philippine setting, the typical approach much like in most countries is to simply connect these large wind systems to the electric grid, and to simply sell power to the grid when it is generating. Anyway, just like in the U.S., the Philippines operates a spot market for electricity. In the case of renewable energy, a special spot market for renewable energy has been developed by the Philippine government to guarantee that there will be buyers for producers of renewable energy electricity. One concern of some investors is the limit on foreign ownership. It is defined in the Philippine constitution that in certain key industries/sectors, foreign ownership is to be a minority, with a slight majority going to a Philippine partner. For some investors, it is not an issue, but for some it is. As former Energy Secretary and now Alterenergy Partners CEO Vince Perez mentioned during the GTZ symposium, at the moment the only choice is to look for a trusted Philippine partner to work with. Another concern is in the way the public may perceive the Feed-in-Tariff, which is a key subsidy mechanism to attract investors to invest in renewable energy in the Philippines. During the Ramos administration, the government suddenly had to build power plants to meet a large capacity shortfall, and to do this, they had to entice investors with a ‘take or pay’ scheme meaning that even if the power was not being used, electricity utilities and therefore consumers had to shoulder part, if not all, of the cost of the unused generated power. There was such a big public outcry, especially in this country where the ‘cheapest power possible’ mentality rules, that it will sometimes if not always be difficult to pass measures that subsidize for example, renewable energy. Just like the personal computer and the semiconductor industry, renewable energy requires a steady market in order for private sector technologists to be attracted to constantly improve it. Unfortunately, the appetite for renewable energy seems to be correlated with the price of oil. If oil is cheap, the appetite for renewable energy disappears and vice versa. The Feed-in-Tariff hopes to counteract this tendency. Personally, most people would like to see renewable energy succeed in the Philippines. The severe flooding brought about by typhoon Ondoy has brought home more awareness of the need for low carbon energy sources. Supporters of renewable energy hope that electricity consumers will actually step up to the plate and pay a little extra for renewable energy through the feed-in-tariff, in order to increase the returns for the companies and investors that go into this sector, already saddled by high upfront capital expense costs for wind (currently $2.5m per MW) and solar (currently $2/watt for silicon based photovoltaics and $1/watt for less efficient thin film based photovoltaics) and the threat of cheap oil. Besides, electricity consumers in the Philippines already pay a foreign currency adjustment charge for imported oil used in power generation. There is no reason why they should not accept a feed-in-tariff adder, given that they will no longer need to pay the foreign currency charge for that portion of the electricity bill. Otherwise if consumers do not agree to pay the piper, then coal, the current king of the hill in terms of price, will really become entrenched as the power source of choice. _________________________________________________________________________________ Dennis Posadas is the editor of Cleantech Asia Online, and the author of Jump Start: A Technopreneurship Fable (Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009). He is is currently working on a new business fable on climate change and clean energy.

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63 Comments

iyo karpo | October 17, 2009 12:10 AM

Do we need stronger typhoons to remind us that there is opportunity in developing renewable energy sources from wind turbines?

Anyone can purchase a 400watt wind turbines kits that are now commerically available in North America.

MIKE SIPE | October 29, 2009 8:57 PM

WHAT ARE TILAPIA TO OUR EARTH?

You be the judge:
______________________________________________

Is TILAPIA culture a viable choice that can help everyone to live happier, healthier and better lives?,

here are some of the things tilapia can make possible.
______________________________________________
1. TILAPIA CAN ABOLISH WORLD HUNGER. TILAPIA CAN FEED ALL THE HUNGRY CHILDREN. To A hungry child Tilapia CAN RESCUE THEN FROM THE PAIN OF HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION. TILAPIA CAN PROVIDE a cure for his or here need for a balanced healthy meal.

Tilapia can provide a nutritious meal with a well balanced proteins that has all (100%) of the amino acids and minerals needed to grow our children into happy well balanced adults.

100 grams of a tilapia fillet provides 100% of the daily needs for protein , vitamins, and minerals which will supply enough protein for normal development of the body and CREATE a sense of well being and happiness that only a nutritious diet can create.

2. TILAPIA ARE THE IDEAL CROP.
To a fish farmer tilapia provides a fish that can produce more protein per acre than any other crop (animal or vegetable) in the world FOR LESS MONEY.

3. TILAPIA ARE INCREDIBLE ENERGY SAVERS; Tilapia can lower the energy cost of growing food. Tilapia can be grown using less energy, (human energy or electrical or mechanical) per pound of edible protein than any other crop (plant or animal) in the world and for less total cost.
.
4. TILAPIA IS A SUPER HERO TO a hungry and ecologically bankrupt world tilapia can provide crops that can be affordably be grown in any climate in the world and can replace the overfished and exhausted oceans and allow the reforestation of most of our planet.

5. TILAPIA CAN CREATE WORLD PEACE: BY PREVENTING WARS OVER THE AVAILABILITY OF FOOD AND LAND. provide the affordable nutrition to be able to lower the tensions between people who are competing for the usable land create for the first time a happy and peaceful world.

6. Tilapia is now, this year become the fastest growing segment of the aquaculture industry and the aquaculture industry now as of this year delivering over half of the fish available as food.

7. TILAPIA IS going to become the most extensively grown fish in the world within the next ten years and will produce more revenue than all of the other species of fish put together.

In terms of revenue in U.S. dollars this will be over 10 billion dollars a year.

TILAPIA makes it possible to:

1. Find World peace. By making possible the economical production of nutritionally complete food which will help feed the hungry.

2. Feeding the hungry will help people to grow from happy children to happy, nutritionally well balanced, psychologically balanced content adults that have have a feeling of well being that only a good diet can create.

TILAPIA WILL CREATE A BETTER ENVIRONMENT by reducing the cultivated land now needed to produce beef, pork, and poultry by 95 percent or more which will reduce the demolition of world forest to make room needed to make good pasture land and produce the grain crops now used for animal feed.

TILAPIA will reduce global warming by increasing the total number of trees and foliage which will allow 95% more co2 removal and conversion into carbohydrates

This replacement of the hundreds and thousands of acres of land needed to grow animals feeding on grasses and grains with a few square feet of water covered land needed to grow the same weight of meat. These few square feet of water will feed and grow the same quantity of tilapia on a tiny fraction of the space. and will free up 98% of the land now in use for the purpose of raising beef, and allow us to stop stripping out our forest to create new land suitable for raising beef, pork. and poultry.

Some numbers to contemplate: The numbers are approximations based on information fro specialist in each area AND ARE BASED ON THE CONVERSION RATES OF EACH ANIMAL AND THE ACREAGE REQUIRED TO CULTIVATE THESE FEEDS

1. IT TAKES FROM 3-12 ACRES OF LAND TO GROW THE FEED AND PRODUCE THE GRAINS AND OR GROW THE GRASS TO PRODUCE 100 POUNDS OF BEEF PER YEAR.

2. IT TAKES 2.5 -10 ACRES OF LAND TO PRODUCE THE GRAINS AND OR GROW THE GRASS TO PRODUCE 100 POUNDS OF PORK PER YEAR.

3. It takes 1.5 -7 acres of land to grow the grains and or the grass to produce 100 pounds of poultry per year.

4. It takes as little as .01 acres to produce the feed (algae) used to raise 100 pounds of tilapia fillets. this is because one acre fertilised with 10 pounds of triple super phosphate will grow enough algae to produce 10,000 pounds of whole pennyfish which will yield 5,000 pounds of skinless boneless fillets.

AMOUNT ANIMAL NUMBER OF POUNDS BONELESS FILLET PER YEAR

LAND 1 ACRE........................43,560 SQUARE FEET IN AN ACRE
------------------------------------------------------------------
1. It takes 3-12 acres of land to grow 100 pounds of skinless BEEF .......130,680 SQ. FT.
PORK.......108,900 SQ. FT
POULTRY ..65,340 SQ. FT
pennyfish .......435 SQ. FT

The conclusion that a careful reader will come to is that the cultivation of tilapia, is REALLY a good thing, because of the amount of protein that can be produced by the farmer, which is 10,000 pounds of whole fish per acre where as all of the other choices require at least 150 times more land to produce the same live weight of animals.

An acre of land will grow enough algae to grow 10,000 pounds of whole tilapia per year/
All other tilapia can be produced at the same ratio if algae per pound of live fish.
If the farmer is growing tilapia nilotica or any of its form will get at most 3,200 pounds of skinless boneless fillet, where as a pennyfish grower will produce 5,000 pounds. in the same growing area.

Wait! it still gets better: the cost per pound of fillet produced each year will only be $1.00 FOR PENNYFISH compared with a cost of $3.00 per pound of skinless boneless fillet .
So
Pennyfish grow to 2,2 pounds each in 34 weeks at 85 degrees f. and yield 50% skinless boneless fillets. That is 34 weeks from 52 weeks in a year is a time ratio of 34/52 which means the pennyfish farmer is starting a second crop where the aurea grower is still waiting the 43 weeks it takes to get the aurea to the same harvest weight of 2.2 pounds each.

If this ratio is converted to days then the pennyfish crop takes 238 days and the aurea farmer is taking 301 days so the pennyfish tilapia grower has produced his 500 pounds of fillet in 238
days whereas the aurea farmer take 301 days to get 310 pounds of
skinless boneless fillets.

The pennyfish produce 2.1 pounds per day (IN THE SAME SPACE AND THE SAME AMOUNT OF FEED.,) while the t. nilotica is only producing one pound per day of skinless boneless fillets.

So on a year round operation you can grow 60% more for each dollar spent.
NILE PENNYFISH
$0.02 SORTING ......... $ .02 $0.02 ..CHILLING..... $.05 CHILLING..... $.05

$0.60 ..PROSSESING PROSSESING ......$30
$0.90 .... feed. feed..............$0.30
$0.10 .......packing packing$.10 $ 0.30 ..................cage or tank cost per year.......................$0.10
Estimated TOTAl cost to grow... nilotica....$1.04 per pound of fillet Estimated TOTAl cost to grow... pennyfish.$0.77 per pound of fillet

The space, labor and feed all cost three times more for nilotica than for pennyfish which is what makes the nilotica so much less profitable.

KayackDak | November 19, 2009 5:05 PM

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