DOE to provide tech assistance to MSMEs using solar energy

• Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?nid=3&rid=934177
• Monday, October 24, 2016

(PNA), LAP/CD/MARK FRANCISCO

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Oct. 24 (PNA) –- The Department of Energy (DOE) would provide technical assistance to the country’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which employ solar energy, a top DOE official said.

Energy Undersecretary Loreta G. Ayson, said that the development of the MSMEs is part of the priorities that President Rodrigo Duterte wanted to decentralize.

Ayson was in Cagayan De Oro City over the weekend as a guest of the “5th Businessweek Mindanao Leaders and Entrepreneurs Awards,” an annual award, sponsored by a regional newspaper in recognition of recognized successful entrepreneurship among MSMEs in Mindanao.

She said that as part of the “decentralization” program, the project would jump start in Mindanao, then move up to the Visayas and Luzon regions.

Under the scheme, the MSMEs, which intend to use solar energies in their businesses should apply to the DOE in order to avail of the technical assistance.

Ayson said that the DOE would then evaluate the applications prior to extending both technical and financial assistance.

Aside from the solar energy, the government was also pushing to harness the vast ocean energy in the country, which has a total of 170,000 megawatt energy potential, Ayson said.

She said that the DOE has given the go signal to the H&WB Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., a French-Filipino consortium in the Philippines, to harness the tidal energies in San Bernardino Strait and off the coast of Sta. Ana, in Cagayan, Luzon.

Ocean energy emanates from tides, waves, tidal streams, ocean currents, thermal gradients and salinity gradients.

She said that the tidal in-steam energy is generated when streams of water flow between land masses as a result of tidal height differences.