Team Energy's 'Heart and Soul': Making renewable energy project sustainable

MANILA, Philippines - Team Energy Foundation Inc. (TEFI), formerly Mirant Foundation Inc., has thought of an approach to make a renewable energy project sustainable.

“The idea is for all existing solar energy projects of TEFI along with other partners to be self-sustaining,” TEFI vice president and executive director Maria Teresa Lopez said, in an interview at a launch of a pilot project in Tawi-tawi recently.

With this concept in mind, TEFI coined another name for the pilot program from a previous Project BEACON  or Barangay Electrification Assistance for Countryside Development,  it is now called “Heart and Soul” or Household Electrification Assistance Through Renewable Technology and Social Preparation for the Upliftment of Lives.

Heart and Soul Project, as it connotes, calls for full-hearted participation of all the parties concerned to make it more sustainable and long-running.

“Our vision is geared towards changing attitude of the beneficiaries of our former electrification project. Its an idea which gives credence to a proverb... Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for life,” Lopez said.

To put the Heart and Soul approach in a clearer perspective, TEFI signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Department of Energy(DOE) to create the new framework for the project.

The MOU signed by Team Energy president and CEO Federico Puno and Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes last December 22, 2009 was aimed at finalizing a program between the Department of Energy and TEFI that seeks to help the government meet 90 percent household electrification by 2017. 

In this MOU, TEFI will handle social prepration activities while the DOE will provide the solar power systems. This MOU was a prelude to the MOA signing conducted last March 19.  This MOA covers 3,400 households in Polilio Group of Islands, Quezon.

Armed with this concept, the TEFI executive formed a team from TEFI and chose six barangays for a pilot test.

Out of the six barangays, TEFI picked Barangay Tondon in Tawi-tawi as one of the first best practice sites to apply the Heart and Soul approach.

To recall, Project BEACON ( was done by TEFI but known as Mirant Philippines Foundation then) in partnership with DOE to help in the government’s vision of achieving 100 percent barangay electrification through its “O-Ilaw” and later on Expanded Rural (ER) Electrification programs.  This was done by having TEFI energize barangays by putting up poles and lines to connect barangays to the grid or providing barangays with Solar Home Systems. Of the 1,512 barangays, 500 were in the ARMM region benefiting from Solar Home Systems and these became part of the Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) project in partnership with USAID. Project BEACON aimed to promote long-term peace and development in the countryside communities in the Philippines by improving quality of life through the energization of off and On-grid, remote and conflict-affected communities with, sustainable and clean renewable energy (RE) systems as well as building local capacity to sustain these systems and to use them for livelihood and social development projects. 

Explaining how the idea works, Lopez says Heart and Soul allows all concerned parties to get involved and do their share to make the project prosper and benefit more communities and individuals as possible.

The DOE, for  one, will provide the renewable energy systems and  TEFI  will fund the social preparation/community organizing aspect in partnership with the  Alliance for Sustainable Partnership and Initiatives in Renewable Energy (ASPIRE).

When the 1,512 BEACON barangays were turned over to the DOE, TEFI commissioned a group of experts (Preferred Energy Inc.) to conduct an impact evaluation study on the lives of 300,000 households (equivalent to 1.5 million people). 

Lopez points out that this new approach sees electricity as a catalyst for growth but also considers the “holistic” development of the community by looking into its needs with regards to basic services enhancement (health, education) and economic development. 

“The rural electrification program of Team Energy has evolved from purely providing technical equipment to looking into sustainable development through rural electrification,” she adds.

For his part, ASPIRE president Rodrigo Cabrera, also a former National Electrification Administration (NEA) administrator, says they expect to proceed with the real implementation of the program this month.

“We really want this program to go full blast amid the need for promotion of renewable energy sources such as solar,” Cabrera notes.

Cabrera says far flung communities should not be suffering from darkness because of their remoteness to the grid. There are stand alone system that they could use.

For the past three years, ASPIRE has been engaging and relating with the communities as our partners, recognizing and respecting their potential and capabilities following a cycle of assessment-planning-implementation-monitoring and evaluation.

Describing their Tawi-Tawi pilot project, Lopez says this province was one of the first areas that was given solar power through the AMORE program almost seven years ago. Today, several of the barangay beneficiaries have  not only maintained their solar power systems, but also managed to collect funds enough to purchase more systems for remaining households without electricity. This was all done without furhter intervention from external or internal organizations.

“Our supplier of Solar Home Systems, SURE (Solutions Using Renewable Energy) has as their CSR counterpart for the program, the E-Learning Program which is providing distance learning opportunity to the community via provision of a television set, dvd player and educational dvds,” she says.

She explains that in Tawi-Tawi, TEFI has partnered with ASPIRE to pilot the distribution of 109 solar home systems in three barangays, namely: Tondon (Municipality of Panglima Sugala), Sumangat (Municipality of Bongao), and Lookan (Municipality of Sapa-Sapa). 

“Together with the RECDA, we put up service centers in Sumangat and Bongao Propers to cater and effectively serve the varied needs of our pilot communities (i.e. solar requirements such as parts and repairs).  This again was based on lessons learned from the impact study,” she adds.

Panglima Sugala mayor Nurbert Sahali welcomes this program to Tawi-Tawi, saying that this does not only give hope and light but also help uplift the life of the communities.

Tawi-Tawi governor Sadikul Sahali, Al-haj, on the other hand, sees this solar power program as an opportunity to promote economic growth in the province.

“We are very thankful for the contribution of light to our people here at Tawi-Tawi. We hope that this program could be extended to as many municipalities and barangays in the province particularly those that have been deprived of electricity,” Gov. Sahali says.