Electricity and Water for 1000 Typhoon Victims

After months of rebuilding canals, power-houses, forebays and  re-intallation of new electro mechanical devices, four (4) repaired MHP systems in four villages respectively are  up and running again. This means the MHP communities are  lit up again and rice mills  grinding  new rice harvests. 

Here are the four MHP sites that were fully rehabilitated .

1. Lat-eyMalibcongAbra

To recall, the  MPH was built on 2007 serving two adjacent upland barangays such as Umnap, Buanaoand  Sitio, Cubcuba, The system used by the MPH observes the lappat – a traditional forest conservation and management scheme for environmental sustainability.

Its MHP has been properly managed by the communities. As a result, the system has been functioning efficiently until typhoons Manghut and Rosita damaged it.  

With the donation from GlobalGiving, SIBAT fabricated a three phase electronic load control (ELC)  used to balance the power demand with the power generated by the Micro-Hydro turbine. The unit fabricated and installed by SIBAT engineers is in collaboration with EWB-UK.

The forebay  was concreted to  ensure the continuous supply of water to the turbine to avoid electricity interruption. Also, a  trash rack fabricated  at  SIBAT’s  machine shop called CRETech or Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology Center was installed as well to filter debris.  This will avoid the intrusion of sediments and debris to turbine that contributed to the wearing  out of the turbine  runner.

2. Barangay Mataragan, MalibcongAbra

After the typhoon, the generator of the MHP of this village  was damaged due to mud intrusion inside the powerhouse. This affected the supply of electricity and totally stopped the system. It took three months to restore  the electricity. In collaboration with Mataragan Micro Hydro Power Association (MAMIHPA) and SIBAT, the old generator was replaced with a new one and likewise installed to the site.

 3. Sitio  Buneg, Conner, Apayao Province

The typhoon hit badly  some civil components of the MHP system specially the power canal and the turbine inside the powerhouse. Like the other heavily silted system, the runner of the turbine was damaged and totally stopped the supply of electricity. Because of this SIBAT made an effort with GlobalGiving funds to fabricate a new turbine and was finally installed.  Electricity again was  produced lighting households and  powering agricultural machineries

  4. Sitio Bubog, Barangay Nabuangan, Conner, Apayao

The community has 18 households with a population of 80 people  connected to the system with a capacity of 8kW.  This was commissioned in 2009. The alternator was damaged by the typhoon and SIBAT replaced it with a new one together with replacing the worn out bearing of the turbine and repair of the grounded circuit breaker inside the powerhouse.

With all rehabilitation efforts and GlobalGiving’s support, electric power and water supply have been fully restored and serving the communities.

This is to thank all your support channelled through GlobalGiving. The parts, components and civil works were ensured to be of robust materials and construction work  to withstand another onslaught of damaging typhoons…but we hope these sites that have survived with their  water and electricity back would be spared from another typhoon fury in the coming years.