SPECIAL REPORT: Lessons from a failed micro-hydropower project in Davao City’s Marilog

Students in Sitio Maluan, Barangay Marilog Proper in Davao City use the flashlight function of a cellphone to do their homework. MindaNews photo by Manman Dejeto 

MARILOG, Davao City (MindaNews / 21 March) — Sitio Maluan is a small Matigsalug community, 10 kilometers from the nearest highway in Barangay Marilog Proper, with a population of only 182 individuals. Being very remote at 80 kilometers from the city’s downtown, Sitio Maluan remained off-grid until October 2024 when the Davao Light and Power Company installed mainstream power lines.

But the whole village remains in the dark because the residents cannot sustain paying for electricity.

Availing of commercial electricity is an uphill battle. Some residents said someone took advantage of their situation, offering electricity connection for ₱12,000, a huge sum for the community.

One household managed to raise ₱12,000 and got connected to the grid. Immediately after, the nearby houses tapped into that sole commercial electricity connection, the monthly bill supposedly to be divided among them.

Satellite dishes soon adorned the roofs of the houses of Sitio Maluan.

By January 2025, however, Sitio Maluan was again without electricity as the village’s sole electricity connection was cut for failure to pay the bill. They could not collect from those who “connected” because given its remote location, they could not receive the printed billing and there is no mobile phone signal to enable them to receive the paperless billing of Davao Light.

For Marcelo Ansodo, 26, who tends rubber trees planted on several hillsides in Sitio Maluan, being an off-grid community is a huge disadvantage, especially for students.

Having electricity, he said, is a huge help for students.

“Sa una gamit namo gas (kerosene) para suga.” (We used kerosene lamps before for lighting.)

Marcelo finished basic education in Sitio Maluan Elementary School andattended high school in Marahan, a more bustling sitio along the highway, and from there became a scholar at the Jose Maria College during his 3rd year in high school. But he has since stopped attending school and is back in Sitio Maluan.

Disadvantaged students, teachers

Marcelo notes that off-grid students like them in Sitio Maluan perform less than students in communities with electricity. “Disadvantaged kaayo mi. Mao nang uban kung mangiskwela na didto sa Marahan naay maulahi gyud.” (We are so disadvantaged. That is why some of us who proceed to high school in Marahan really fall behind.)

“Importante ang suga sa amo. Kay need og kuryente para mabutangan og internet. Mugraduate tuod mi diri sa bukid pero pag-abot sa siyudad, wa gyud gani kabalo unsa nang mouse o internet. Mao nang need ang kuryente diri.” (Light is important for us. We also need electricity to be able to access the internet. We might graduate here in our mountain village but when we go to the city, we don’t even know what a mouse is or the internet), he said.

Marcelo does not discount importance of books but says they also need the internet for research, especially when one goes higher up the rungs of the ladder of education.

Jely Joy Lacia, one of five teachers in the Maluan Elementary School where all of the 104 students are Indigenous Peoples (IPs), teaches kindergarten in the morning and helps in the remedial reading classes for grade schoolers in the afternoon.

Their school has a small solar power facility but the batteries have lost their ability to hold any charge and drain quickly.

She said they can only use their solar power from 9 or 10 a.m., depending on the intensity of the sun, until about 3 or 4 p.m.

Photovoltaic systems convert sunlight to electricity and its challenge lies on energy storage which is in the form of batteries. The batteries are costly and have to eventually be replaced when its performance goes below its rated capacity.

Jely explains that when it is cloudy, they cannot print their instructional materials, worksheets and activity sheets for the students.

When she was a new teacher in Sitio Maluan back in 2020, their solar power system was still working but it was their school’s printer that went out of service. She had to go to Barangay Calinan, some 50 kilometers away, to have learning materials printed, using her own money.

“So this is how the sea looks, Ma’am?”

She says their students are disadvantaged because teachers cannot employ other ways of instruction for the students without electricity.

“Kung icompare nimo didto sa highway, nga naay kuryente, kumpleto sila didto. Didto naa silay TV, diri ang mga bata walay silay makita nga ingon ana. Puro lang mi tarp ug papel.” (If you compare them to those students where there is electricity, there they have everything. They have TVs, our students here do not get to see those things. All we can show them are on paper and tarpaulins).

She laments that while schools along the highway have electricity, can access YouTube and PowerPoint, can show students many things related to their subjects’ topic, in Maluan, students have access only to books, tarpaulins and paper.

Their students fall behind those in town centers or in cities.

Growing up around the mountains and the rivers in their community, students in Maluan would stare in amazement when the teacher shows them a photograph of the sea. “Ay ingon ana diay ang dagat, ma’am?” (So this is how the sea looks, Ma’am?

Because their village is so remote, the children rarely get to visit the nearest community that is near the highway.

“The kids only get to see buildings, or buses, or even hospitals in pictures,” Jely adds.

For school programs, she recounts, they have to hurry while there is electricity from their solar power source or the program gets interrupted when it gets suddenly cloudy and the solar panels cannot generate enough electricity.

“Magpasalamat gyud mi kung ang adlaw sidlak kaayo. Kung dili siya muandar (solar panels), magputol putol gyud among program.” (We are thankful when the sun is shining full. Otherwise, our programs getinterrupted too.)

She also stressed that for her kindergarten pupils, visuals are very important and also music to help augment their mode of learning.

The teachers have to be creative using local materials and whatever is available in the community to add to the paper and books learning materials.

So many “what ifs”

Marcelo looks back at the many “what-ifs” if it were only possible that they had electricity from the supposed hydropower facility promised them over a decade ago.

The Ateneo de Davao University’s (ADDU) project was the “Design and Performance Evaluation of a Micro-Scale Hydroelectric Power Plant for Energy Generation in the IP Community of Sitio Maluan, Marahan, Marilog District, Davao City,” funded by a ₱2-million grant from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). The project’s implementation was from September 2013 to March 2014.

The power generated by the micro-hydroelectric power facility was aimed to provide Sitio Maluan electricity to use for basic household lighting and for a mill to use for the community’s agriculture produce.

The researchers originally chose a location for the hydropower facility where there was a larger stream. But Marcelo said it was at least 30 minutes’ walk from the sitio.

ADDU researchers were concerned that the micro-hydropower generator would be far from the community, would have been more costly to distribute the electricity and they also would have voltage drop problems due to its distance.

The researchers were forced to look for another option when frequent landslides began happening in the chosen area, rendering their original water source not viable anymore.

The community recommended a different location for the power generation facility—one that was nearer the community, its water sourced from a smaller stream.

The current location of the micro-hydro powerhouse is below a hill just across Sitio Maluan’s row of houses. The water for the facility comes from a stream flowing on top of that hill. Along that stream, a weir (a low-dam or barrier) was built to divert portion of its water into a forebay (a reservoir or an open pool) to hold a steady supply of water.

Water from the forebay is fed into the penstock—a series of pipes—that channels the water down to the turbine of the micro-hydro power generator.

Harnessing water to produce electricity is dependent on suitable “head” and “flow.” “Head” is the vertical distance that water falls to the powerhouse while “flow” is the amount of water falling into the micro-hydro power facility.

The 5-kilowatt micro-hydro power facility in Sitio Maluan had a good “head,” its penstock running down a steep hill before reaching the powerhouse where the turbine and generator are protected from the elements.

But the stream’s water level dropped when trees upstream were cut down and movement in the mountain’s soil kept blocking the waterway. The water level was no longer enough to turn the turbine of the micro-hydro power generator.

Dr. Randell Espina of ADDU’s School of Engineering and Architecture, the designer of all the components of the micro-hydroelectric power plant that was installed in Sitio Maluan, maintains that renewable energy projects must be viewed as a whole-community approach.

The upstream area of the water source for Sitio Maluan’s micro-hydropower facility was made into a research station of the Department of Agriculture and in the process some trees along the stream were cut down sometime in the late 2013 or early 2014.

“Kung walay kahoy, wala gyud nay tubig,” (If there are no trees, there would also be no water) said Espina. He explains that a hydropower facility needs a constant supply of water. Without trees, the water would just rush down waterways at once instead of flowing at a constant rate.

It was the “flow”—the amount of water—that became the problem. The source stream’s water level had dropped and was not enough to run the facility, a problem that the researchers can do nothing about at that point.

Espina says every hydropower project has to be designed based on the project site’s water source because “dependent man ka sa water flow.” (You are dependent on the water flow.)

And so for Sitio Maluan they opted to employ a cross-flow turbine to run a 5-kilowatt radial-flux permanent-magnet synchronous generator. Both the turbine and the generator were designed, developed, and fabricated by the researchers.

The technical aspect of the micro-hydropower project was already in place to be submitted to CHED, but in line with ADDU’s community engagement principles, university officials deemed that a social preparation component be incorporated. This was funded by ADDU as their counterpart contribution for the whole research project.

Social preparation

Dr. Leah Mae Jabilles of ADDU’s Social Work Department was tapped to be the focal person for the social preparation component of the project.

Social preparation ensures that recipients of projects are simply not just informed of what the project is but to make them actual participants, to develop their awareness of what the project’s impact will be in their community.

“If you want a project to succeed, you need to guide the people,” said Jabilles. “The community should journey with the project.”

Taking into account that Sitio Maluan is an Indigenous Peoples’ community with unique customs, culture, and beliefs, they have to be prepared and not simply be beneficiaries of the project, Jabilles said.

The Social Work Department’s role was not just limited to the social preparation of the community but also to ensure the sustainability of the project.

“It is not enough that you put up a project and just leave it there. Ang mga tao mugrow kauban sa project, kay dili ka forever naa diha sa area,” (The people must grow with the project because we will not be there forever to oversee them), Jabilles said.

“Andam ang mga tao nga musalo, kay ilaha naman na. (The people have to be ready to take over because the project is theirs.) This guarantees accountability,” she said.

6 months instead of 2 years

The Social Work Department wanted to be given at least two years for the project, from the preparation until after the community is running the facility by themselves. But as with all government projects bound by a strict timeframe, they had to make do with the six months allotted to work alongside the technical aspect of the micro-hydropower facility.

For Jabilles, this just wasn’t enough. They would have wanted to develop social entrepreneurship among the people of Sitio Maluan to sustain their power source.

They conducted focus group discussions but it was limited to community leaders of Sitio Maluan. Jabilles said that to obtain optimal effect the whole community had to be part of all the discussions.

As an example, the micro-hydropower facility is dependent on the water from a stream and drastic changes in the vegetation along the stream will have adverse effect on its capacity to generate electricity. The whole community must be made aware of this so their farming practices will not affect the health of the water source.

Jabilles recalls that they had to perform Matigsalug rituals along with the locals of Sitio Maluan, once before the start of the building of the micro-hydropower facility and when the locals saw that the water level of the stream had dwindled.

The community believed that the spirits wanted them to learn a lesson since a forebay (a holding tank) and the penstock (the feeder pipes) were laid on the hill above the powerhouse. “Kay giguba man ang bukid, nasuko ang mga ispirito” (Since you disturbed the mountain, the spirits are mad), Jabilles recounts what the locals believed was the cause of the decline of the stream’s water level.

Still intact

Over a decade later, the micro-hydropower facility of Sitio Maluan is surprisingly still mostly intact.

The weir is full of sand and soil, blocking the water intake. The forebay has been overrun by thick vegetation. The full length of the penstock still lies on the side of the hill. But the supports for the penstock are askew—the pipe collars are bent and agape, the metal support posts already tilting to one side—visible indicators that, indeed, there was movement of the ground and surroundings.

The powerhouse still contains the micro-hydro turbine but the generator is not visible from the outside—perhaps hidden beneath the pile of farm clothes, agrichemical bottles, agriculture knapsack sprayers and a makeshift bed.

The powerhouse has become a shed for those who are working the fields.

Rubber trees now line the single-track path leading to the micro-hydro power facility, their barks tapped with cups hanging to collect the precious latex. On the ground are mounds of coagulated rubber latex which are ready to be collected and hauled off to rubber trading posts.

The Matigsalugs in the area are engaged in agroforestry and some maintain mono-cropped fields planted to corn and cassava.

They would have potentially benefited if electricity was available for them to perform value-adding tasks that would raise the value of their produce instead of being sold plainly as raw materials.

For RE sustainability, electricity + livelihood

Espina disclosed that their biggest challenge is ensuring that their renewable energy projects are maintained by recipient communities. “Daghan kayo mig projects nga mu-fail tungod sa sustainability nga part.” (We have a lot of projects that end up failing because of sustainability issues.)

He said the success of community-based renewable energy projects relies on creating an industry within the community. The electricity produced by these renewable energy projects have to be used to provide additional income for the people.

“Dili gyud magwork kung lighting ra ang ihatag (It simply won’t work if it is used just for lighting),” says Espina. “Naay suga pero di sila muincome, walay nachange sa ilang source of livelihood.” (They will have light at night but that alone won’t give them income, there is no change in their source of livelihood.)

Renewable energy projects are used to harness free natural sources of energy but there are operation and maintenance costs involved to keep these facilities running.

For photovoltaic systems, its batteries must be replaced every couple of years. These batteries are what stores the energy from the sun and enables the use of the electricity at night.

For hydropower, on the other hand, its electromechanical components will be worn down by the constant flow of water. The turbines and generators will need regular maintenance and eventually refurbishment to keep producing electricity.

The water intake, forebay, and penstock of hydropower systems have to be constantly checked and cleared of debris to ensure the flow of water.

These are some of the costs that beneficiary communities of renewable energy projects have to bear for them to continue enjoying the availability of cheap electricity. Cheap electricity but not absolutely free.

RE without economic component wont’ succeed

“Dapat makaprovide kag livelihood,“ Espina stressed, so the community will be able to sustain these renewable energy sources. “Mufail ang imong RE kung walay economics nga component.” (Your renewable energy project will fail if there is no economic component.)

To generate income for the community, power from these renewable energy facilities have to be used to run a machine to process their produce. A milling machine for example will offer a value-adding step so the corn produced by the community can be sold as corn grits, corn grits command a better price than simply trading dried corn kernels.

“Problema, kinsa may muhatag sa machine? Wala may labot sa funding.”(But who will provide these machines? These are not included in the funding), Espina said, adding that most community-based renewable energy projects are concentrated only on the power-generation aspect.

Jabilles and Espina emphasize that renewable energy projects must not be implemented under a “dole-out” model. Their experience tells them that beneficiary communities must be involved in the planning, development, construction, and operation phases to ensure the sustainability of community-based renewable energy projects.

Academic research on success and failure of micro-hydropower