By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay/ PNA
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique — Solar panels will soon light up houses situated in far-flung barangays of Antique.
The Department of Energy (DOE) will be partnering with the Antique provincial government and the Antique Electric Company (Anteco) for the solar home system project that stands to benefit 2,009 households from 48 barangays situated in 14 out of the 18 towns of the province.
Antique Vice Governor Edgar Denosta said in a media interview Thursday the project is very important for the people in the remote areas that up to now have no Anteco interconnection.
“The distance of the houses in the barangays hinders the Anteco to put up their electric poles for it could be very costly that this solar project is the solution,” he said.
The solar project entails a one-time membership fee of PHP500 for each household. They also have to pay PHP100 per month for their electric bill.
He said that in a talk with Antique Governor Rhodora J. Cadiao they have decided to allocate PHP4 million as subsidy for the solar project.
The provincial government will provide a subsidy of PHP450 that they can use to pay for the membership fee and a monthly subsidy of PHP50 for the electric bill.
Thus, each household will only shoulder PHP50 for the remaining membership fee and the monthly electric bill of PHP50.
“The households will only pay very little because of the provincial government subsidy,” he said.
The DOE will be giving one solar panel, two bulbs and one radio transistor to each household beneficiary.
Anteco will take care of the maintenance and repair of the solar panel. There is a plan for each barangay to have a trained serviceman whom they can call in case there will be problems with their connections.
An orientation for social acceptability is now going on for target barangay beneficiaries.
