Hydro-electric dam in Philippines to help preserve Ifugao paddy fields

Baguio City: A mini hydro-electric dam project will soon rise in Kiangan town in Ifugao to help save the famed Ifugao Rice Terraces.

Under an agreement signed recently by Governor Teodoro Baguilat, Jr., Secretary Angelo Reyes of the Department of Energy and Mitsuru Shimizu, project manager of E8, a mini hydro-electric power plant will be put up in Ambangal, Kiangan.

Conceptualised as early as 2003, the dam project was funded and implemented by E8 through the Tokyo Electric Power Company with the support of the Philippine Department of Energy and the Ifugao provincial government.

E8 is a non profit organisation composed of nine leading electricity companies from the G8 countries that promotes sustainable development through electricity sector projects and human capacity building activities in developing countries worldwide.

Call for preservation

The project came as a response to the call for the preservation of the Rice Terraces and the need to provide a cheap source of electricity in the province.

According to engineers, the project aims to harness water running down the rice terraces and turn it into electric power through a 200 KW generator. Community consultations were conducted last year and the year long feasibility study started in the second quarter of 2007.

The construction of the mini-hydro project is estimated to start in the third quarter of 2008 with the system generating power by 2009, said Baguilat.

Upon completion, the system "will create sustainable revenue to the terraces conservation," said Toyoto Matsuoka of E8.

Baguilat explained that part of the revenues of the project's power sales to nearby communities will finance a rice terraces conservation fund to be used in the rehabilitation of damaged rice terraces and for other projects.