ILOILO CITY, Iloilo, Philippines (PIA) — The Department of Energy (DOE) is pointing at Western Visayas’ vast renewable energy (RE) potentials, which the agency says if tapped, could augur well for the region’s bid for energy security and sustained economic growth.

DoE, in its assessment of RE development contained in the current regional development plan said while Western Visayas has already made significant strides in activity, it has more potential projects drawing power from wind, solar, bio-mass, sea current, and hybrid power configurations.

For instance, the country’s first bio-ethanol plant, capable of producing 40 million liters a year, has been put up in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental province and is expected to provide 10 percent of the country’s ethanol requirements.

The P3-billion facility, which draws support from vast sugarcane plantations in the province for raw materials, is an important technological development that is aligned with the sugar industry in the region.

The region also has an operational 15-megawatt bagasse-fed co-generation power plant in Passi, Iloilo City’s Central Azucarera de San Antonio. Another RE project established in the region is the Northern Negros Geothermal Project in Bago City and Murcia, also in Negros Occidental province which provides 10 MW of geothermal power.

Based on the aforesaid current regional development plan, five other RE projects with a capacity of over 100 MW have been completed in the region, with several other ongoing and in the exploratory stage after the pioneering three projects were operationalized.

There are other potential projects that can be pursued, but which have no takers yet from the side of investors. This has been attributed to low awareness of potential investors on RE incentives and benefits, lack on information and education campaign by concerned agencies, as well as slow processing of application for RE contracts.

There are recommendations in the current regional development plan. Such recommendations include the adoption of the net metering option to entice more investments in the RE sector, and offered to companies wanting to generate their own sources of RE power with option to sell extra power generated to the government grid, as well as providing a micro-financing window for small RE projects in certain banks.

In order to sustain and make existing projects competitive, there is also a recommendation – particularly with regards to the fledgling bio-ethanol project in Negros – to protect it from cheaper foreign ones through the imposition of a 20-percent tariff on imported products.