Can Floating Solar Farms provide power to fishing communities in isolated islands and also serve as a Fish Aggregating Device or “Payao” to increase fishermen’s catch?
The Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources ( BFAR) will meet with officials and engineers of SN Aboitiz Power on Monday, July 8, to consider the establishment of floating solar farms to provide power to isolated fishing communities, especially those in the islands.
SN Aboitiz Power has established the first floating solar farm in the Magat Dam in Isabela in partnership with the National Irrigation Administration.
Photos of the Floating Solar Farm posted by SNAP officer King Christopher Camba in his Facebook page caught the attention of the DA Secretary who immediately sought for a meeting with the solar-power engineers who designed and built the facility.
The idea of a floating solar-power generating facility to provide electric power to remote fishing communities was discussed during the recent Management Committee Meeting of the DA in General Santos City.
The DA Secretary directed Undersecretary Eduardo Gongona, BFAR National Executive Director, to form a technical team to determine if the floating solar farms could serve the following purposes:
– Generate power for remote fishing communities to run ice-making equipment and cold storage facilities.This will provide immediate solution to the problem of fishermen who live in remote and isolated islands who have been asking for ice-making facilities so they could bring their catch to the market;
– Serve as “Payao” or Fish Aggregating Device, a traditional method of providing artificial haven where small fish species gather and attract big fish which prey on them. It is in the “Payao” where local fishermen using handlines catch high value fish like Tuna, Malasugue and others attracted by the small species.
The DA-BFAR spends about P250,000 for each of the floating devices and has already deployed about 1,000 units all over the country.
The Floating Solar Farms-cum-“Payao” could be very useful in island provinces like Siquijor, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-tawi and other isolated fishing islands.
If proven viable, the DA-BFAR will establish a pilot project in one of the island fishing communities in Tawi-tawi or Sulu.
(Photos of the Magat Dam Floating Solar Farm provided by King Christopher Camba of SN Aboitiz Power.)
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