Renewable energy hub up in Ilocos Norte
BATAC CITY, Ilocos Norte: A hub for all renewable energy centers in the country will soon rise in a state university in this city, with biofuel as its banner program.
Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) president Shirley Agrupis said the multi-million-peso proposed National Renewable Energy Research and Innovation Center (NRERIC) will be established in the university that will include a laboratory for its Professional Science Master on Renewable Energy Engineering course.
An initial P150-million fund for the establishment of NRERIC was assured by Sen. Loren Legarda who also submitted the proposal to Sen. Cynthia Villar, chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture.
Legarda also pledged another P20million for every year thereafter for the sustainability of the center, the project of which was also endorsed by the Department of Energy (DoE), Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) and various bioenergy stakeholders.
According to SRA, the country’s bioethanol output for 2017 was targeted to expand to 322 million liters with the operations of new plants, but which is still way below the mandated 570 million liters bioethanol required by the DoE.
“We want NRERIC to be a national center instead of being regional in scope,” Agrupis said adding that the Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi will be spearheading the drafting of a national program that focuses on nipa as feedstock for bio-ethanol.
Recently, the MMSU was invited to a Senate hearing as academic resource institution in the evaluation of the Biofuel Act of 2006.
Agrupis said the Senate has focused on the feedstock, because the facilities for bio-ethanol are already in place, large-scale industries are already in place, and the biofuel outlook is there.
Sen. Sherwin Gachalian had asked DoE and the SRA to direct all their resources to MMSU for the development of nipa bioethanol feedstock.
On the other hand, Agrupis and Legarda also advised the DOE and SRA to minimize too much researches and instead delegate their research work to MMSU so that the university can focus more on nipa.
- ect of MMSU, we have embraced all kinds of feedstocks. All of them have potential but when we talk of sustainability, we focus on nipa because it is the best for economic reasons, acceptability and sustainability,” Agrupis said.
She noted that the country still cannot meet the demand for ethanol especially for the 10 percent needed as mixture of gasoline, thus, the Philippines still imports 60 percent ethanol from other countries.
Citing researches, Agrupis said nipa crops can not substitute sugarcane because the palm plantation industry in the country can only sustain 19-20 percent of the total ethanol demand.
Under the Biofuels Act of 2006, all liquid fuels for motors and engines sold in the Philippines should contain locally sourced biofuel components. Oil companies were required to sell gasoline with at least 10 percent ethanol blend.