US-Pinoy group to build 1st ocean power facility in RP

MANILA, Philippines - Deep Ocean Power Philippines Inc. (DOPPI), a joint venture between Filipino and American investors, is expected to build the first ocean power facility in the country in 2012.

DOPPI chairman Alberto David told reporters over the weekend that they are going to build two ocean-run power facilities in Panay and Mindoro with initial capacity of 10 to 20 megawatts (MW) each.

David said the company is currently in the process of completing the study on the first facility in Antique. The construction will start in the second quarter of 2010 and is expected to be completed by 2012. The next project will be located in Sablayan in Mindoro. 

The DOPPI official did not give an estimate on the project cost.

US-based Deep Ocean Power Inc. vice president Derek Murray said they would like to take advantage of developing renewable energy sources in the Philippines.

Deep Ocean’s project is the sole ocean-based power technology approved by the Department of Energy (DOE) last week and part of the 87 service RE contracts signed by the DOE.

“According to the DOE, (power from ocean) here is over 170,000 MW for the future of the country. The Philippines is one of the premier locations within the world for our technology due to the extreme thermal difference between the warm surface water and the deeper cold water because those are the two required elements for our technology. And we have a deep shelf here locally in the Philippines, that’s the reason why we chose the Asia Pacific region,” Murray said.

Murray said they still have plans of developing 34 more sites all over the country which would reach a total of 100 MW over the long term.

The Deep Ocean executive believes that this particular technology would help bring down power costs in the country in the future.

“We’re still working on the remaining 34 sites and we will continue to study those. We feel that the oceans here are the oil of the Philippines and so we hope to locate them, the oceans temperatures..to help reduce the cost of energy and that’s our goal over the next several years,” he said.

According to Murray, the technology that they are going to use will be environment-friendly.

“What’s really nice about our technology is that it has a byproduct of water, so you can have a distilled water that can be, potable water that can be used locally, so you’ll have water that can be of need in some areas so we could produce that. Our technology helps increase fishing in the local region because we’re bringing up deep water which is very high in nutrients that normally sit in the bottom of the ocean. So we’re bringing these up...so you’ll see a surplus of fishing and other resources as well, you actually help the environment,” Murray said.