The Biomass Energy panel during EnergySmart conference held last August 31-September 2. The panel was moderated by Gerard Ostheimer (left), and attended by Alberto Dalusung III, President of the Biomass Renewable Energy Association; Sen. Juan Miguel ‘Migz’ Zubiri, current Chair of the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce, and Entrepreneurship; Atty. Job Ambrosio, Director of the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines; and Rafael Diaz, Director of the Asian Institute of Petroleum Studies.
The Biofuels Act of 2006, penned by Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri back in 2006, has made the country able to maintain and improve its renewable energy sources. Since the passing of the law, many renewable energy projects have been planned, produced, and inaugurated.
However, a lot of the country’s renewable energy projects are suffering from a lack of supply, coupled with a huge demand. This problem is more felt in the supply of biomass, which are organic materials that can be sued to create energy such as bagasse from sugarcane, and copra from coconuts. “It’s not easy to do biomass,” said Alberto Dalusung III, President of the Biomass Renewable Energy Association. “It’s difficult to secure the feedstock, the price, and volume,” he continued.
Still, those in the industry are optimistic. “There is an upward trend,” said Job Ambrosio, a director of the Ethanol Producers Association of the Philippines (EPAP). “With the support of the government, we are now able to put up more biofuel plants which help small local farmers,” he explained. By Ambrosio’s optimistic estimate, the supply and demand for local biofuels will stabilize by 2017.
In the Philippines, biomass and biofuels are produced from four major crops: Rice, coconut, sugar and corn. “From these four major crops alone, 35.5 million tonnes of biomass energy can be generated if utilized properly,” said Sen. Zubiri.
“If investors can cooperate with small farms and their co-ops, then we can reach the potential power generation capacity of 4,450 megawatts from biofuels in the whole country, which can become constant energy supply to the grid,” he continued. /PR