MANILA, Philippines – As part of a German government-supported public-private-partnership project, the German biogas tank producer Lipp GmbH established a research partnership with Mapúa University-Intramuros.
Through the partnership, Lipp will donate biogas yield testing equipment to Mapúa to support biogas research efforts into new feedstocks, the organic matter that is fermented to generate biogas.
“As a tropical country, the Philippines has plenty of organic material whose biogas yield has not yet been tested”, says Mr. Manuel Lipp, Managing Director of Lipp GmbH. “I think there is a lot of potential for biogas production in the Philippines and we want to help access that potential,” Lipp continues.
In Germany, chambers of commerce and industry play a central role in ensuring industry’s active engagement in education and training. “Close collaboration between industry and academia is a cornerstone of Germany’s higher and dual education, and a main reason for the country’s economic success,” says Mr. Christopher Zimmer, Executive Director of the German-Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GPCCI). “Through the Lipp-Mapúa partnership we were able to localize an important element of the German training system here in the Philippines and support waste-to-energy research,” Zimmer adds.
Biogas is an energy carrier which is generated through anaerobic digestion of feedstock. Potential feedstocks include animal by-products, agricultural wastes, vegetables and fruit wastes as well as slurry and manure. To optimize biogas yield, the input material needs to be studied and their energy value understood.
Testing the energy content of a potential feedstock is the first step to explore the feasibility of a potential investment into a biogas plant. The current lack of a comprehensive testing facility in the Philippines requires biogas companies to ship feedstock as far as Germany for testing. However, despite the Philippines’ huge amount of organic waste, biomass contributed only 1% to the energy mix in 2020, according to a report from the Department of Energy (DOE).
“We welcome the opportunity to establish a biogas yield laboratory here at Mapúa,” says Dr. Reynold B. Vea, President of Mapúa University. “This will support our research and instructions as well as fast- track the growth of the Philippine biogas industry through industry-academe collaboration,”
GPCCI member company MetPower Ventures, a subsidiary of the Metro Pacific Group, built two industrial scale biogas plants in Mindanao for pineapple producer Dole Philippines under a Build- Own-Transfer (BOT) setup. The two plants in Surallah and Polomolok, South Cotabato use the Lipp biogas digester technology and have a combined capacity to produce 5.7 megawatt of clean energy per year. The energy generated powers Dole’s canning operations.
The laboratory establishment is part of the German government-funded develoPPP project
“Capacity building of technicians on the construction, maintenance and safe handling of biogas plants in the Philippines”. Earlier this year in April, GPCCI, Lipp GmbH, and the German Biogas Association conducted a comprehensive biogas plant safety training according to German Safety Rules in South Cotabato.
