By:
Maricar Cinco - 05:19 AM October 09, 2018
SAN PEDRO CITY — The
government is testing the viability of harvesting solar energy through panels
floating on Laguna de Bay, another potential use of the massive water body for
renewable energy.
So far, at least two
sites in the 90,000-hectare Laguna de Bay have been identified for the tests
that would run for a year.
Power for offices
Renewable energy firm
Winnergy Holdings Corp. has commissioned a 10-kilowattpeak solar farm in Baras
town, Rizal province, on Sept. 27 generating power for the town’s Kasarinlan
Park at night.
Another power company,
Vena Energy, was expected to commission a solar test bed in Los Baños, Laguna,
after signing a memorandum of understanding with the local government and the
Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA).
The Los Baños test site
could energize government offices in the town.
The LLDA has approved
the use of up to 1,000 square meters per site, although private companies have
so far limited each pilot area to only 200 sqm.
Jun Paul Mistica, head
of the LLDA project management and evaluation division, said among the things
they wanted to find out were if the solar beds would last given the weather
conditions and their possible effects on the lake’s natural ecosystem.
He said the tests would
last for a year to expose the solar beds to both the rainy and dry seasons in
the Philippines.
“The [solar panels] are
floating so they create a shadow effect, like putting a roof [on the water
surface],” Mistica said.
Effect on fish
“Will they have positive or negative effects
on living things beneath the water?” Mistica added in a phone interview on
Monday.
The LLDA, he added,
also wanted to see how feasible power generation would be in Laguna Lake that
has long been exhausted for “bangus” and tilapia aquaculture.
Mistica said the
initiative was the first of its kind in any water body in the Philippines,
although similar technologies had been used in other countries usually in water
reservoirs.
He said putting the
solar panels on the lake, instead of mounting them on the ground, reduced the
need for land that could be instead allotted for agriculture.
The government did not
spend anything for the pilot tests, the results of which would be used as basis
for policies, he said.
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