IESSLA: Integrated Energy Systems Site seLection Assessment for Accelerated Business and Project Development in Off-Grid Islands

Archipelagic nations such as the Philippines continue to deal with challenges in electricity provision in remote islands due to the barriers for grid connection. Currently, most of these off-grid communities rely on costly and polluting diesel generators which are unable to provide reliable, affordable and sustainable energy access. Renewable energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaic, wind, biomass and tidal energy conversion are poised to provide electricity in off-grid areas. With the trend of decreasing costs, these options are opportunities for private sector investment in a market that was once handled by missionary electrification programs by the national government. However, the smaller scale of individual project locations and the costs of performing on-site feasibility studies are barriers that do not attract private investors.

This project aims to reduce the barriers to development of renewable off-grid energy systems by developing an integrated assessment tool. This toolkit integrates the analysis of techno-economic, environmental, social, legal and geographic considerations to identify viable islands for further consideration. A detailed front-end design is performed to verify the results and demonstrate the application of the toolkit. This project brings together the expertise of Aquatera (for project management and technical design reviews) and OceanPixel (project development, stakeholder management, and engineering aspects) together with the academic partners (for stakeholder engagement, systems modeling, sustainability assessment) at University of the Philippines, Silliman University and Ateneo de Davao University .

It is planned that this project will accelerate the deployment of sustainable energy systems resulting in improved quality of life and greater productivity in off-grid communities. With the development and use of this toolkit, energy developers can cut down costs on pre-feasibility surveys and better leverage their resources towards sites with greatest potential.

The project will conduct a feasibility study across the 3 island groups of the Philippines (Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao) specifically looking at off-grid islands of a certain size and with a certain level of inhabitants where potential progressive development can be enabled by the provision of renewable energy through an integrated energy systems approach that also takes into consideration the productive end-use of such energy should the next phases of a proposed project be implemented. The project aims to identify at least 5 off-grid islands per island group that could be assessed in greater details to move the potential investment and/or business case for such candidate sites/projects.