By Lemuel Pagliawan and Miriam Desacada
Catarman N.Samar–The provincial government of Northern Samar is poised to pull heaven and earth to further propel economic activities in the province and consequently improve the socio economic status of its constituents.
This vision was made clear as they recently disclose their plan to harness the full potential of natural elements such as sunlight, waves and wind as sources of renewable energy for the province which have been reeling from energy issues the past several years.
Gov. Edwin Ongchuan discclosed they will embark on an ambitious yet achievable feat of utilizing nature as alternative source of energy.
“This will significantly augmen the province’s energy requirement and at same time propel our local economy even generate jobs while preserving nature through the production of clean energy,” Onchuan explained.
During last Sunday’s float parade to kick-off the province’s 2nd year Ibabao Festival celebration coinciding with it’s 59th founding anniversary, Onchuan highlighted the all out support of all the 24 towns of Northern Samar to his quest of putting the province as among the country’s top producers of clean renewable energy.
For his part, Vice Governor Clarence Dato said he and the rest of the rest of the provincial board fully support this particular endeavor of the governor.
“We are now focused in promoting renewable energy, investing in sun, wind, and tides to protect the environment and sustain livelohoods and biodiversity and also promote further socio-economic growth for the province,” he said.
He disclosed that they envision to establish both on-shore and off-shore wind turbines that will be set up in certain strategic areas in Northern Samar.
“But of course we cannot do this alone, we have also established partnership with the private sector who will initially finance the construction of these wind turbines,” Datu said.
He said private partners could be foreign or local. For one, he mentioned Abiotiz renewable/power as among those who signified interest in the project.
This, accoridngly, will be implemented through a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.
“We’re excited about this as we expect this to spur economic growth through employment for locals and other economic activities beneficial to the whole province,” Datu said
This project is now under construction and is expected to become operational by May of next year. It was learned that this wind turbines will have the latest and bigger blade of approximately 110 meters, which exprctedly would also produce more energy than the usual ordinary wind turbines we see around.