Solar Technologies for Off-grid Rural Fishing Communities

Abstract

This study describes a concept for the productive use of renewable energy to support the economic development in a rural area of the Philippines. As an example for productive use serves the application of cooling equipment based on electricity generation by solar technology. More precisely, the business case of an off-grid ice maker generating ice cubes for fishermen of a small island in the Philippines is analysed. The result is compared with the existing case, i. e. buying ice cubes from an ice cube producer using the island grid based on a large Diesel Genset. The business case is based on a series of interviews of important stakeholders included in the value chain of the fishery business in March 2018. These are the fishermen, the officials of the province level and the local level and further the fish traders being involved in the sale and distribution process. The result shows that the application of a pure off-grid ice making facility is economically feasible. The biggest challenge for a successful implementation of the concept is the lack of capital for the investment in the offgrid facility. The investment demand typically exceeds classical pay-as-you-schemes. Thus ways of developing alternative microfinance instruments have to be elaborated further for a successful implementation. The proposed concept of a foundation of a cooperative with fishermen as shareholders and a micro finance institution as a debtholder contributes to an increase of the income of the fishermen of roughly 14%.