UP professor cites strong Phl potential for biogas

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines has strong potential to develop the biogas industry due to the country’s favorable geographical conditions and availability of various kinds of feedstock, according to industry stakeholders.

Energy generation from biogas, which is the product of natural degradation when organic matter ferments, does not cause any additional greenhouse gas emissions and does not depend on climate factors.

“The Philippines is potentially a major market for biogas given our geographical conditions and our available feedstock resources such as animal manure, agricultural by-products and agro-industrial waste,”  said Liborio Cabanilla, University of the Philippines Los Baños College of Economics Management Alumni Foundation Inc. (UPLB- CEMAFI) executive director.

He said improving the country’s biogas industry is just a matter of better informing the people of the possibilities.

Cabanilla said farmers have the potential to have financial security by selling agricultural waste and from the organic digestion process which also produces high-value fertilizer.

He cited, First Quezon Biogas Corp. (FQBC) which has been producing green energy with the help of a poultry farmers’ cooperative from Quezon province. Commercial poultry owners have faced problems with the huge quantity of chicken manure generated from their farms.

FQBC’s biogas facility in Quezon will primarily use 14,000 metric tons of chicken manure per year from Quezon’s poultry farms and rice straw, readily available in the province.

“Biogas is changing our perspective of work and our life in Quezon province giving us the chance of developing further our main business, poultry farming while generating green energy. We solved a problem and found a lucrative venture along the way,” FQBC president Andy Alquiros said.

However, the use of high-efficiency technology is important in ensuring a full control of the biological process, engineer Marcello Barbato of German biogas technology company EnviTec Biogas AG said.

 “Our German experience and quality can be easily implemented in this amazing country that needs power and efficient technologies to enhance its growth,” he said.