International Finance Corporation, partners to inject $161m for biomass projects in the Philippines

3 biomass power plants will be built in Negros Occidental.

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, with support from the Government of Canada and the Clean Technology Fund, announced an investment of $161 million in three biomass power plants in Negros Occidental, the Visayan island. The project is expected to generate 70 megawatts of clean renewable energy for the country.

The power plants are being built in the towns of Manapla, San Carlos and La Carlota and will convert sugarcane waste to electricity using a low carbon-emitting process called circulating fluidized bed boiler technology. Before it was identified as feedstock for biomass power plants, sugarcane waste was burned in the fields, a practice that contributed to air pollution.

IFC Country Manager, Yuan Xu said: “Energy is central to the country’s development, and the Philippines needs to further diversify and secure its energy sources. Converting agricultural waste to biomass power is a sustainable way of creating economic value while caring for the environment.”

The Clean Technology Fund as well as the Government of Canada’s contribution to the project through the IFC-Canada Climate Change Program have helped make this investment viable. To date, Canada has provided CA$271 million to the program, to enable climate change investments that are generating significant environmental and economic benefits in developing countries.

The three power plants are expected to qualify for the biomass feed-in-tariff of the Philippine Energy Regulatory Commission. The feed-in-tariff is available to energy producers with up to 250 megawatts of biomass generating capacity.