If all goes well, I will be putting my salary where my mouth is in a “Big” way.
After talking about solar power for many years and installing solar streetlights around our property in Lipa City and Barrio Kapitolyo, Pasig, I have asked a supplier to do the ocular inspection in order to install a solar powered deep well water pump. Depending on the system we choose, the initial cost will be a couple of months of my salary. But I will have the satisfaction of being partially off grid for water. This installation will be the big test intended to help us decide if we convert much of our energy needs to renewable energy.
Switching to solar power in Lipa makes sense because the weather is cooler than Metro Manila most of the year and we often get by with a fan. Having converted to vegan/vegetarian we no longer need the freezers we used to have, and plans are underway to invest in a real greenhouse to supply our plant-based needs. Given today’s technology switch to “compact” designs, a solar based set up will more than meet our energy needs and, being in our senior years, there is a high probability that the system we install this year will outlive us. Given the added reality that productivity and long-term employment diminish drastically in our senior years, making sure that our quality of life does not suffer as our finances diminish with age has now become a concern that needs action. Going to solar power is just one of those solutions where you use technology to manage your expenses.
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Last Saturday as I surfed the internet and checked YouTube on solar related topics, I came across a documentary on the world’s largest floating solar power plant and I ended up watching several other videos on projects in China, Singapore, Japan and the Netherlands. I honestly had to shake my head because it made me realize that we have missed our flight, missed the boat and missed the bus in terms of tapping the energy potential that solar power plants could have given the country from 2000 onwards. It was around that time when China started an “experiment” which is the official word for “to try” putting up a 300 gigawatt floating solar power plant on the Changhe and Zhousiang reservoirs 150 kilometers south of Shanghai. The experiment was constructed inside the Hangzhou Fenglin electricity science technology solar park. After construction the floating solar facility provided electricity to 100,000 families. This was further expanded with a 120 megawatt floating solar facility that further increased the energy supply for families and businesses, created an estimated $45 million in revenue for power while the $260-million cost has an estimated payback period or ROI of five years.
While China may claim to have the biggest floating solar farm in the world, their bragging rights won’t be theirs for long because reports indicate that South Korea is on their way to building a similar project, but twice as big in area and capacity as that in China. Meanwhile, our neighbor Singapore, being the pragmatic folks that they are, has purpose built a floating solar power plant designed to energize their five water treatment plants, and currently has four floating solar power projects under construction with plans of making as many as 16 such projects by 2025. The Netherlands has invested half a billion dollars on such a project they call ZON OP ZEE or Sun In the Sea to tap solar power off-shore, especially now that natural gas is in short supply.
As I went over those various videos, I realized that floating solar power plants are no longer “experimental” in the true sense of the word. Their locations are all dependent on what’s available or highly beneficial. Several have been placed inside reservoirs and next to hydro-electric power plants because they have a complimentary feature triggered by nature. During rainy seasons, hydro-electric plants generate full capacity but during summer or dry season the floating solar facility efficiently produces the short fall of the hydro-electric plant. Another benefit of the floating solar facility is that it can cover wide areas and reduce water evaporation and solar panels above water are 5 to 15 percent more efficient than roof top installations.
Back in the Philippines, just when I thought that bright minds at the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) finally got on the right track, it seems that the start of a good thing has intentionally been “bypassed” after a member of the Board decided to play safe and smell clean with the BBM administration. Unfortunately, what has been “bypassed” was the awarding of winning bids to the first “experiment” or trial on floating solar power plants on Laguna de Bay. The LLDA could collect rent, the business model was our best chance at proving to the BBM administration that solar is a viable energy source, reduces weather and typhoon related disruption and damage to power supply and a viable investment offering to investors, both local and foreign.
Whether it’s on Laguna De Bay, the Pasig River, the Cagayan Valley River, we all know that solar power technology is being used to power storm and flood monitors, to power data gathering equipment around Mayon and Taal volcanos. Many streetlights all over the country are solar powered. In fact, if the BBM administration treats solar power technology with intentionality, it can be an equalizer and gamechanger providing cheaper electricity on site in depressed communities, military camps, hospitals and schools, etc. A far-sighted Cabinet secretary could dedicate the next six years to the goal of creating pump-priming factories that manufacture low cost solar power panels, etc.
Let’s create the Solar Power Development Agency! If not the LLDA, perhaps TESDA, MWSS, the AFP and DepEd should open the doors to investors and make a profit that’s there for the taking.