CATARMAN, Northern Samar — Foreign experts on tidal energy will arrive next week to conduct an assessment on progress of the project that seeks to energize a whole island municipality with clean and renewable power sources.

This comes after Northern Samar Governor Edwin Ongchuan met with top executives of Energies PH Inc. — the proponent behind the Ocean Power Project in Capul last Tuesday to discuss the development of the project.

EPHI president Antonio Ver said the Department of Energy recently confirmed the commercial viability of this initiative saying solar and tidal energy sources are already integrated into the Philippines’ comprehensive energy plan.

He added that the EPHI remains steadfast in its goal to enhance its infrastructure with a target installation capacity of 1 megawatt in the island.

The Ocean Power Project in Capul is the first tidal power project in Southeast Asia. It harnesses the water current of San Bernardino Strait to run turbines that will produce the electricity.

A study on the energy consumption of Capul town conducted by EPHI shows that the island’s peak electricity demand is 427 kilowatts and its power supply rely solely on four diesel generators operated by the National Power Corporation Small Power Utilities Group, which generates 480KW.

EPHI’s study also showed that between July to August 2019, the municipality encountered problems of energy supply such as power outages that occurred 35 times totaling 33 outage hours.

The Northern Samar provincial government introduced a “green lane” for projects that promote clean and renewable energy thus helping them fast-track their progress.

Ver said the introduction of green lane helped address the major challenge EPHI had faced since the beginning of the project.