Power to the Mindanao People -- Literally Tee Hee Hee

During my stay in General Santos City, I noticed that brownouts seemed to be quite a common occurrence, so much so that portable gasoline-powered gensets were something that a fair number of establishments had. Upon nosing around, I was told by a few people that it was likely that the hydroelectric plant at Maria Cristina falls no longer had the sufficient capacity to supply power to the region.

Now, I'm fairly certain that the dam is not the sole source of electricity of the island (there are probably several coal- and oil-fired plants out there, maybe even some geothermal plants there -- I'm going to read up on this), but because I think it likely that the conflict in Mindanao (limited in area and scope as it is, although blurbed by mainstream media to be an fact encompassing the island) probably discourages large-scale investment in power generation projects.

That said -- and in keeping with GenSan Mayor Jun Acharon's avowed adherence to resilience and self-reliance -- I'm taking off the foolscap and putting on a hardhat, just so I can propose something southern Filipinos just might find useful:

Microgeneration.

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Small-scale power generation is not a new concept, really -- in the Cordilleras, the use of what are now popularly known as "mini-hydros" have been providing electricity for quite a while now.

I'm not going to propose the use of mini-hydros, of course -- from what I understand, there are not too many rivulets and streams that have the volume and velocity needed for microgeneration near the major urban and industrial centers such as Davao, GenSan, and Cagayan de Oro. Instead, these areas enjoy relatively flat topography and practically year-round fair weather, making it ideal for agriculture and aquaculture (think of a year-round growing season; another topic for another time), therefore, I am going to propose the use of two other technologies: photovoltaic panels (solar panels, folks) and microgeneration wind turbines.


Sun Power -- Ideal for Mindanao

With fair weather being the norm down south, I think that the use of solar panels, both on a large scale and for microgeneration, would be one of the ways to reduce the load on the existing power plants.

Naturally, there'll be some opposition to the use of land for the development of solar fields -- yes, folks, those hectares and hectares of solar panels -- using the argument that people, crops, and grazing animals could be displaced by such development. They could be right... IF the solar fields were going to be developed in land that could be used for living space, agriculture, aquaculture, or animal husbandry.

Not all land is suited for these, folks, as anyone half a brain can tell you. For instance, the land bordering General Santos City Airport (what with the noise of all the aircraft, not to mention the need to maintain a security perimeter) would be well suited for the development of solar fields bordering the airport, with panels constructed far enough away from the runways (basic engineering safety, folks).

Also, those who would oppose the development of solar fields on grazing pastures have not exercised their neurons enough to know that panels can be mounted on five-meter concrete pedestals, under which grazing animals can still feed (heck, they may even stay under the panels for shade on a hot day). Since typhoons don't ravage Mindanao the same way they do the northern and central Philippine islands, the engineering requirements would be considerably lesser in Mindanao than in Luzon or in the Visayas.

Going into the urban areas, where there are naturally more buildings than there will be open land (yes, Generals, give it a few more years of your phenomenal development, and you'll see these start to become a normal concept), solar power is still a viable concepts -- after all, I have not yet seen any building in Mindanao that did not need a roof... and where there is a roof, it is a simple matter to mount a set of solar panels to supply (or at least augment the supply of, and therefore reduce the requirement of) electricity. Even with tall, narrow skyscrapers (such as those I am fairly certain Davao City will soon have), it is not a major effort to include in these buildings' architecture the placement of solar panels on the sides of the upper floors to add to the power capacity supplied by the roof panels.

One of the more idiotic questions I've heard in opposition to the use of photovoltaic technology is this: "What if there's no sun?" It's enough to make one's hair turn white, let me tell you.

Seriously, folks, these people have disregarded some concepts of microgeneration, such as:

- Solar panels are also used to charge storage farms (yep, sheds full of batteries) that provide house current via DC-to-AC inverters and therefore supply power while "there is no sun" (bleh), and;
- The load being supplied is still connected to the grid; quite a number of microgeneration projects are designed to augment, not replace, grid power. There is still NAPOCOR, you know.

'Nuff said. See, folks, Mindanao is pretty much better off than the rest of Las Islas Filipinas is, when it comes to solar power use.


Wind Power -- A Question of Location

We're not talking of large wind farms (like they have up in Bangui, Ilocos Norte); we're going to be talking of microgeneration using wind power. The essential difference is that microgeneration using wind power requires lower wind speeds, something in the order of 5 m/s at a height of 20 meters for microgeneration turbines instead of the 8 m/s at a height of 50 meters for utility scale turbines.

(Important note, people: I haven't found any reliable and long-term wind mapping data for Mindanao, so I'm going to have to proceed from conjecture. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong.)

Yet again I'm going to have to emphasize that Mindanao is not as stressed by typhoons as the rest of the Philippines is, and as such will not have to have the same engineering requirements. Now, assuming that we can find areas where wind velocity is sufficient and consistent enough for microgeneration, then it will be a simple matter to build wind farms.

The opposition towards wind farms has been waning, what with land use not as affected as with the development of solar fields (think tall, not wide), but one constant complaint has been the noise that utility scale wind turbines generate (pun unintentional haha).

The problem of noise is not unsurmountable, fortunately; much has been done to develop wind turbines that aren't too noisy. See, the large volume (now this pun was intentional nyahaha) of the noise comes from the tips of the blades of the turbine moving through the air.

This is where good engineering design comes in -- if it is the movement of blade tips that causes the noise, then let's reduce the movement.

A large number of utility scale wind turbines use what is called HAWT -- horizontal axis wind turbines (think of a propeller that faces the wind). Not only are HAWTs loud (well, not too many of those I've called hawt are loud, but that's not germane to this topic), they also have the disadvantage of having to be directed to where the wind is blowing from to get maximum power generation.

I would instead propose the wind turbine type called VAWT -- vertical axis wind turbine (think of something that looks like an egg beater). The design is such that the rotor tips are so close that the noise is significantly reduced; an additional advantage is that there is no need for the turbine to be oriented towards the wind -- the VAWT turbine will spin with wind from any point on the compass.

(Speaking of which: I'm fairly certain that if we set up a VAWT-based wind farm near Congress and near Fortress Pasig, we'd have enough power for the entire country. Pity there isn't much available land in those areas... although I'm certain that there are roof-mounted VAWT designs available.)


Grid Integration: KISS

Keep it simple, stupid.

Remember, the primary goal of microgeneration in the context of this post is to augment, not replace, existing grid capacity (or at least until someone builds a cold fusion reactor that is the size of a chest freezer or something).

I would think that it won't be difficult to develop an integrated solar panel/ VAWT power farm for rural-scale microgeneration, as well as developing the same integrated power generation capability on large buildings. The problem -- surmountable, of course -- will be the additional infrastructure of providing battery farms and other such power storage and inverter facilities to convert stored power to supplied power.

Yes, we can't let go of NAPOCOR, but we can at least reduce our dependence on them.


Issues

Let me just bullet-point a few of the major issues that such projects will face, off the top of my head:

- Cost: yep, there'll be costs involved, but with the Kyoto Protocol and quite a number of organizations supporting this initiative and even funding it, there will be quite a bit of cost reduction involved... from discounts, I would suppose, up to actual funding.

- Security: 'nuff said. Hey, if copper wires get stolen here in chaos central, why not elsewhere?

- Lobbyists: those in the business of petroleum power don't like clean power, I'm sure.

Political will and community engagement? Well, the southern Pinoys have that in spades and more. I do hope that someone down south is willing to start a campaign for green power.


Summary

If there's a power problem in Mindanao, I am confident the Mindanawons will fix it. Let's just hope green power is part of their agenda.

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Later, all. Early day today.




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