Philippines biomass industry receives $161 million funding boost

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, the government of Canada and the Clean Technology Fund will make a $161 million (€146.3m) joint investment in 70MW of biomass power capacity in the Philippines.

In a statement, IFC said that the financing will be mobilised under the IFC-Canada Climate Change Programme and the Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Programme.

It will be provided to global investment banking firm ThomasLloyd Group and Bronzeoak Philippines for their scheme in Negros Occidental province, the Visayan island.

ThomasLloyd and Bronzeoak are working on three projects in the towns of Manapla, San Carlos and La Carlota.  Through a low carbon-emitting process called circulating fluidised bed boiler technology, the biomass facilities will convert sugarcane waste into electricity. The power plants are expected to qualify for the biomass feed-in-tariff (FiT) of the Philippine Energy Regulatory Commission, which is available for up to 250MW in total.  

“This funding will help utilise agricultural waste to generate reliable base load power, providing additional income to farmers, reducing fertilizer costs and helping contribute to a healthful ecology,” Bronzeoak CEO, Jose Maria Zabaleta, said.

ThomasLloyd CTI Asia Holdings is the principal financial sponsor. WBE (Hong Kong) International Green Energy will be in charge of all engineering and construction services, according to the statement.