BP Solar Municipal Solar Project
BP Solar has been supplying equipment and systems to rural development projects for over 15 years as part of the company’s commercial business. In remote locations, particularly poor un-electrified communities, solar products and services can be an effective means of meeting essential needs such as lighting for homes, schools, and community centers, as well as remote tele-communication, fresh drinking water, and vaccine refrigeration.
In the Philippines, BP Solar is engaged in a number of rural infrastructure projects, including the vast Municipal Solar Infrastructure Project (MSIP), undertaken with Philippine and Australian Governments.
The MSIP uses solar energy as the “enabling technology” to allow the Philippine Government to target specific needs of remote and poor un-electrified communities, and upgrade basic community facilities. This project has helped to provide health, education and governance benefits to more than 721,140 poor Filipinos in 11 provinces, 53 municipalities and 435 villages in the Mindanao and Visayas regions. The project, one of the largest solar contracts in the world, cost US$27 million. Funding was provided by a grant of 33 percent from the Australian Government plus a soft loan from the Australian Government for the remaining 67 percent. MSIP commenced in November 1997 and was completed in May 2001. BP got involved because of the rural off-grid work it had already undertaken and because of direct interaction with the Australian Development Aid program, AusAid.
BP Solar was involved in the project from the start, in helping to determine the systems and services necessary to satisfy community needs. The company worked with the governments of Australia and the Philippines to identify the target communities and to design and implement the programs from beginning to end.
A major component of this project was ensuring its sustainability through delivery of training, social preparation and community development programs. More than 2,251 villagers were trained under this program. BP recognized the need to complement the delivery of solar systems with training and preparation. “Without these elements, there are plenty of examples of systems falling into disuse and disrepair, resulting in disillusion in the target communities and leaving them in a worse state than before the systems arrived,” said Graham Baxter, vice president for Solar Solutions at BP Solar.
Site surveys and social validations were initially performed at each village to determine the needs of the communities and whether they had the infrastructure needed for the systems (water source, school building, village hall buildings, full time health worker etc). At community assemblies, officials provided an introduction to the project and the basics of solar electricity. This was followed by community organizing, forming groups and associations who would ultimately manage the systems. Two people in each community were trained on simple maintenance of the systems. Municipal Engineers and operatives were then trained on the more technical repairs and maintenance of the system components. Spare parts were also distributed to the municipality so that the communities could have easy access to replacement parts. After the commissioning and handover of each system, BP conducted three separate visits to follow up with the groups and organizations that were formed.
In total 1,145 packaged solar systems were installed in 435 villages. On completion of the MSIP, the following community facilities had been upgraded and provided with a packaged solar system: four district hospitals, 11 rural health centers; 104 village health centers; 260 village potable water supply systems; six municipal halls; 201 village halls; 266 schools, and 289 communal area lighting for markets and fishermen’s wharves.
The MSIP was conceived, designed, and implemented to improve the quality of life for people living in some of the most remote and poorest areas of Mindanao and the Visayas Provinces. BP undertakes such projects because they are good business, both in terms of profitability and in terms of environmental and social contribution. As a result of the MSIP, BP Solar has developed a lot of experience in this form of comprehensive project delivery.
“For BP Solar this can be attractive business,” says Baxter. “We have developed the competencies to undertake this work, and there aren’t many other energy companies that can do this at the scale we envisage in our future plans.” Rural infrastructure projects are now at the core of BP Solar’s business strategy, and in the future the company intends to “clone MSIP” in other regions.
This case study is part of a two-volume report that emerged from a joint research project between WBCSD and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. The report examines ten case studies of private-sector engagement in technology cooperation in developing countries. Download each volume from the WBCSD Web site (scroll to the bottom of the case study).
