Visiting The Philippines

If you've read our last post, you’ll know that we've been out battling the traffic in the Philippines to visit SIBAT, another EWB-UK partner organisation. Throughout our trip we continued to experience the fine Filipino fumes and tedious traffic – our experiences included walking through congested Manila, travelling the 100 km between the SIBAT office in Manila and their farm in rural Tarlac, traversing the island of Luzon by Tricycle, Jeepneys and minibuses to try and reach tourist destinations, and travelling for a total of about 32 hours to visit a site in the northern provinces. The travelling may have been tedious but the trip has been really helpful to help direct the next few months for both of our projects (find out more below) and we've had some great experiences.

Tricycles (motorbikes with a side-car) appear to make up a large proportion of the road traffic in towns and cities

The journey to the SIBAT farm.  Locals are taking advantage of the hot road to dry out their rice crop.

The SIBAT farm is in peaceful countryside
 - it's about 2 hours' bus ride from Manila

Jenny's project - working to develop a low cost Electronic Load Controller for micro -hydro systems

As I've described in previous posts, I’m working on a project to develop an Electronic Load Controller at lower cost than the off the shelf alternatives. For the same reasons as TONIBUNG, SIBAT are also trying to develop a prototype and are being supported by another EWB volunteer, Dan. Our requirements and high level designs are quite similar so we're trying to work together to share learning and review both designs. Being able to meet, review the designs together and work through some design processes has been productive and should make it easier for us to continue to work together remotely over the coming months. 

One of the tools we used is a failure modes effects analysis (FMEA).  The aim of this type of analysis is to be able to identify what might go wrong with a product so that you can reduce the likelihood of it occurring.  It's particularly important to think through the risks with the design when it's a safety critical system or needs to be robust and reliable. All of these apply to our ELC designs.

The controller will handle large voltages which can cause serious injuries through electrocution or fire. Installing the ELC in remote communities also makes it even more important that it is robust and reliable. It needs to be easy to install and operate correctly, and able to withstand bumpy journeys to the site, high humidity, heat, and possible invasions by insects or geckos! Reliability is also important since if the ELC is not working correctly, the community will be without power until the problem is fixed.  Since sites can be very difficult to reach or even contact (particularly during rainy season) and the powerhouse is likely to be a good hike from households, it could take considerable time to troubleshoot and fix any issues.

We weren't warned that the Philippines shuts down for All Saints' Day but we were able to make the most of the long weekend to visit some of the tourist sites, including Taal volcano.

Our visit to a SIBAT site in North Luzon and Tash's project

 

Ag Agama, Luzon

Milling rice by hand

Tash's project is to develop business models for productive end use to help fund community micro-hydro installations. The idea is that the community can make use of the electricity the system provides to generate income. This income can be used to help pay off the cash loan provided by TONIBUNG, which (along with grants) finances a proportion of the installation. SIBAT were able to take us on a site visit which helped Tash to understand how this kind of model may work in practice. She was also able to learn about the tools they use to assess whether a community is suitable for this kind of initiative.

Drying rice in the sun

A village on the road to Ag Agama where
we stopped to buy some chilli paste

Three SIBAT engineers took us on a 16 hour drive to Ag Agama, a small village of around 100 households in mountainous North Luzon. Ag Agama is powered by one of SIBAT's micro hydros. When the turbine had been installed, corn and rice mills were also placed in the village to productively utilise electricity from the hydro during the day.

We were able to spend some time talking to members of the community who are involved in the rice mill to learn about how it is operated and the challenges they have encountered. When working, the mill generated around 15000 pesos annually. This money went to the micro hydro committee and was spent on projects to benefit the whole community, such as maintenance of the turbine.

Unfortunately, the mill had not been used for over a year. This was partially because of a landslide that destroyed part of the building it resides in, and partially because of insufficient power from the turbine. On the visit we also found issues with the reliability of supply which SIBAT were able to address - they agreed some system upgrades with the community (replacing the ELC ballast loads for a more robust design) and helped the operators to understand how they could improve their operational practices (they had been using incorrect operating conditions for the generator and the wiring connections in some transmission cables were not robust).

The intake for the micro-hydro system

The powerhouse

Another highlight of Ag Agama was an afternoon picnic featuring the slaughter of a chicken and many 'Filipino tequilas' (a shot of local gin followed by a slurp of a passion fruit sprinkled with salt and chilli). We'd like to say a massive thank you to the team at SIBAT for their help in making this trip happen.

Picnicking in the Philippines