Israel power firm bullish on Philippine prospects

MANILA, Philippines — Israel-based GenCell Energy sees great opportunities in the Philippines in providing an alternative and cleaner solution to diesel-fired generator sets and to address power woes caused by natural disasters.

The company is making the country as as a jump off point for its expansion in the Asian region.

GenCell recently launched its fuel cell products in the Philippine market to provide clean power back up to local businesses and even rural areas that can withstand a number of common causes of power outages including brownouts, natural disasters.

The company believes its fuel cell solutions – which has the same breakthrough technology that has powered American and Russian spacecraft – are a game-changing alternative to traditional battery and diesel-based generators that often run for seven hours a day or more.

“We look at Philippines as our a hub into the Asian market because we feel the opportunity here is huge because the Philippine economy is suffering from outages, some of them because of the ageing grids, and some of them because of extreme weather conditions,” GenCell Energy CEO Rami Reshef told The STAR.

“Nobody can prevent typhoon or earthquake but we can be ready to accommodate it or get over it as soon as possible. That’s how we started how to approach this market,” he said.

GenCell’s hydrogen-based solutions produce no emissions, noise, or vibrations and provide immediate back-up power to businesses facing tropical storms.

Its products can be used to power up even the smallest applications like ATMs to as big as a microgrid system.

“Definitely feel that there’s a huge need for power solutions. Right now, key market is telecoms, financial, and medical facilities,” Reshef said.

The Israeli firm has tapped Laguna-based technology service provider Amorele Technology Inc. to distribute its products in the country.

“In some Philippine islands, we regularly experience grid failures lasting as long as 12 hours with at least two-to-three brownouts per week…To bridge this gap, thousands of diesel generators are installed everywhere. Noisy, leaking, and polluting, these generators cause harm to the environment as well as being costly and difficult to maintain and not always reliable. GenCell solutions can provide a resilient and sustainable alternative,” said Alain Caparanga of Amorele Technology.

As the partner of GenCell, Amorele Technology is pushing for the alternative solution to replace diesel gensets in the countryside through discussions with government agencies.

“We’ve had discussions with head of committee of disaster risk management. We’re again trying to communicate with government for solutions for GenCell,” Caparanga said.

Building its presence in the Philippines is only GenCell’s first of many plans in this part of the world as it hopes to make the country its hub for its products in the region.