Cloud seeding sought for hydro plants
By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter
A PHILIPPINE senator urged the government on Thursday to explore cloud seeding, a method that induces sudden and significant rainfall, to activate hydropower plants that have stopped working due to the drought caused by the El Niño weather pattern.
“In Dubai they tried cloud seeding and it started raining over there, if we can try cloud seeding to get our hydropower plants working since maybe (if El Niño worsens) our other plants may also stop working,” Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian, speaking in Filipino, told a forum at the Senate.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee chairman noted how in this month, so far, 21 hydropower plants have stopped amid a lack of rain, dried up rivers, and episodes of drought. This was lost opportunity to produce 800 megawatts of power, he said.
Last February, the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office 2 in Cagayan province successfully conducted cloud seeing operations in select areas of Region 2, causing light to moderate rains.
The DA-RFO2 said Piper Navajo flyers had scattered 33 sacks of sodium chloride on cloud formations 4,500 feet above the ground for precipitation to aid parched farmlands.
Last Wednesday, the country’s main grids saw a shortfall of energy supply for the seventh time in April, with a yellow alert being raised over the Mindanao power grid for the first time this year.
These alerts are issued when the supply available to a grid falls below a safety threshold, while a red alert is raised continues to fall.
Luzon and Visayas power grids on Wednesday were under red and yellow alerts respectively, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines said in a statement.
EXPLORING GAS RESERVES
Meanwhile, Mr. Gatchalian said that oil and gas will still be important energy sources in the coming years even as the government tries to transition to renewable energy.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. told foreign journalists earlier this month that his administration is looking into exploring gas reserves in nonconflict areas in the country’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, to boost its power generation capacity.
This comes as the Malampaya gas field, which supplies a fifth of the country’s power requirements, nears depletion.
It is expected to run out of easily recoverable gas using current techniques by 2027.
“Not all of the service contracts (for gas exploration) are in the West Philippine Sea as many of those are outside, and we can start exploration in those areas,” he said in Filipino.
“And I know the DoE (Department of Energy) is planning on trying to convince (companies) with service contracts there to start exploring (gas reserves) since we need energy for the coming years.”
The government is aiming to boost renewable energy (RE) in the power generation mix to 35% by 2030 and to 50% by 2040.
Renewables account for 22% of the Philippine energy mix.
