Developed by IED Invest with financial support from FFEM (French Fund for World Environment) and EEP (Energy & Environment Partnership) Mekong, IED provided project management assistance and project management for this gasification plant which makes it possible to recover wood waste from logging operations in the region.

The target capacity for this first installment was 600 kW. But following the commissioning of the first gas generators and an optimization work carried out in collaboration with the local manufacturer, the unit capacity of the gas generators could be increased to 250 kW (against 150 kW initially), while reducing the rates of tars in the gas produced.

As a result, given the power generation capacity (700 kW), only three out of four gas generators are operated in parallel to date. In order to value the totality of the gas production capacity, IED Invest has decided to add 3 generators and to double the existing lift station. The goal is to reach an installed capacity of 1 MW.

The first tranche of the Sra Em plant has been fully operational since March 2018, and to date more than 2 GWh have been injected into the national network operated by EDC. The commissioning of this plant, located at the end of the line, has improved the voltage plan in the area while allowing EDC to allocate more power to other departures of the source station that were previously unloaded.

Expansion of the engine room began in mid-July, and contracts with generators and substation suppliers are being signed. The ramp-up to 1 MW is scheduled for October / November 2018.

3rd August 2018

On January 30^th 2018, the final report on the feasibility of establishing a hybrid renewable energy facility (Solar-Biomass) on the Island of Busuanga was presented.

The final workshop illustrates the strong involvement of institutional partners at national (DENR, DOE, NEA) and local levels (Provincial Governement of Palawan, PSCD, Electric Cooperative BISELCO, mayors of municipalities of Coron and Busuanga), as well of operators and industrials (Green Missionary Energy, CIPC, Schneider Electric, Enertime, Enertech, Bocard, Solenergy, Sirea,…) that expressed interest for being part of the project.

This study was conducted between august 2015 and december 2017 by IED, with the financial support of the French Ministry of Finance (FASEP) for the DENR and managed by PCSD.

Tourism and industrial development have a major impact on increase in power demand in Busuanga. It is expected that energy demand will grow from 24 GWh in 2017 to 54 GWh in the year 2036, and peak load from 4.4 to 10.0 MW. The current installed capacity of the private power producer on the island, CIPC is 7,7 MW of HFO and 0,9 MW of diesel and will not be sufficient to meet demand within the next 5 years

The main activities performed by IED’s team consist of :

• Assess the future electricity demand using a disaggregated bottom up approach;
• Make a diagnosis of existing facilities and commitments
• Evaluate local potentials of renewable energy and the conditions for their uses;
• Identify technical solutions to achieve a high penetration rate of renewable energy;
• Assess the technical and economic feasibility of the proposed solutions;
• Carry out detailed studies of chosen plans;
• Evaluate the economic viability and develop an adapted business model for project developers.

Following the study of different scenarii for integrating the renewable energy in Busuanga’s energy mix, the optimized generation plan is based on “step by step” implementation strategy:

• Step 0: Reference scenario with only existing capacity
• Step 1: Installation of a LFO power plant of 1.25 MW in 2018, considering the imminent risk of outages
• Step 2: Installation of a 2.5 MWp added in 2019
• Step 3: Installation of a storage system of 1.5 MWh in 2019
• Step 4: PV and storage capacity double in 2023
• Step 5: Installation of a 2 MW biomass power plant in 2020
• Step 4: Biomass power plant capacity double in 2024

The proposed generation plan enables to achieve :

• High RE penetration (54% in average over a 20-year period)
• While improving system reliability, the cumulated shortage hours for 2018-2036 decreasing from 25 100 to 350 hours only)
• Without negative impact on overall production cost, with a slight decrease of the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE).

The implementation scheme for the Busuanga renewable energy hybrid is to set up a joint venture between BISELCO, the Electric Cooperative which would be the leader, Green Missionary Energy (GME) from the Association of Island Electric Cooperatives (AIEC), and IED- Invest (foreign and minority shareholder).

The current project offers high prospects for replication in the Philippines:

• The innovative hybrid scheme, with a “smart micro grid controller” offers potential for numerous islands in the country;
• Having dedicated plantations for a small biomass unit is a win-win, for the biomass power plant which controls its feedstock and for ensuring the sustainability of the reforestation scheme;
• A Public Private Partnership Joint Venture with an Electric Cooperative, which is a clear policy priority for NEA and DOE.
• Sustainable model for plantations projects made viable thanks to pellet exports.

  IED is about to release a study about PV self-consumption and net metering. It is a comparative analysis in 8 African and Asian “emerging” countries.

 What is net metering? Net metering a type of contract regarding partial self-consumption, where surplus of electricity is fed into the grid and enables the client to earn credits. These credits can be used to pay future electricity bills.

 More information: Download the report from https://www.ied-sa.fr/fr/ressources-documentaires/publications.html (available from August 2018)

Note: This study is co-financed by ADEME, and results from IED involvement the Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (PVPS). PVPS is one of the collaborative R&D Agreements established within the International Energy Agency (http://www.iea-pvps.org/).

27th July 2018

The ECOWAS Regional Electricity Access Program has the potential to finance the reinforcement and extension of the distribution network across eleven countries in West Africa, this component of the project focuses on The Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Mali. The project aims at connecting 300,000 household within 100km of the substation currently ongoing under the OMVG regional interconnection project (2 substations in The Gambia and 4 substations in Guinea-Bissau, 1 in Senegal to connect Guinea Bissau) and the OMVS regional interconnector project (4 substations in Mali)

IED was contracted by the World Bank to perform a geospatial electrification plan in order to prepare a preliminary design and cost estimate of the LV and MV networks required to connect households located in the perimeter of the above mentioned 10 substations.

The study was done following two main axes for each of the three countries: densification in already electrified cities and villages and grid extension. IED used its in-house software GEOSIM to perform this analysis. GEOSIM provided the load forecast, the optimization of villages to be connected by grid extension, least cost optimization of the MV feeder path, and the economic analysis of extending the grid.

20th July 2018