Off-grid Solar Home System Projects in Philippines丨ILECO III & COTELCO
Time
2020
Project overview
The Philippines has a population of over 100 million. Till December 2019, there was about 1.8 million households across the country living without electricity. Most of the off-grid households are located in small islands of Visayas and far-flung mountainous villages of Mindanao. President Rodrigo Duterte started to push for the “rural electrification strategy” ambitiously in 2016, and the objective is to fulfill the “total national electrification” within his presidency till 2022.
The National Electrification Administration (NEA) has the jurisdiction over 121 Electric Cooperatives (ECs) nationwide. NEA receives fund subsidy from Department of Finance every year to pursue the “national electrification”. The 2019 General Appropriation Act (GAA) Subsidy allocated funds to 5 Electric Cooperatives to encourage their approach to renewable energy. Each of the 5 ECs calls for tender separately to purchase around 1,000 sets of Prepayment Solar Home System (SHS) for their franchised areas.
SINOSOAR together with its local partner companies participated in the tenders in 2019. The project in Iloilo III Electric Cooperative, Inc. (ILECO III) for the supply of 933 sets of SHS and the project in Cotabato Electric Cooperative, Inc. (COTELCO) for the supply of 1063 sets of SHS were awarded to SINOSOAR and its local partner companies. The 50W SHS products for these two projects are both applied with LFP battery and upgraded Vending Management System.
Compared with the 10,000 sets of SHS installed in Mindanao for the World Bank ASEP Window One Project, more than 10 types of solar technology were improved and developed to serve the off-grid end users better. The vending stations of these two projects are both equipped with independent SHS. It enabled the ECs to set the vending points much nearer to the end users.
Project significance
- The project could supply stable power for the people living in off-grid areas of Philippines, and it solves the basic power demand of the people in these areas;
- The project provided sustainable, safe and environmentally friendly electrical equipment;
- The project had solved largely the unemployment problems in the off-grid areas of the Philippines;
- The project had brought up local photovoltaic technology talents through professional training to them;
- The project is managed with off-grid prepayment system, which will bring sustainable incomes to the local electricity companies;
- The functions of the prepayment products had been improved and upgraded to accommodate the local environment and service better the end users;
- The provides a perfect power solution for the remote areas of the Philippines to realize the national electrification in the near future, and it will stimulate the implementation of a large number of similar projects.
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