Waiting for reliable power

Note: This is part 6 of 8 field notes from a solar home system assessment my team conducted in remote communities in Palawan. Details that could identify the service provider and specific project have been redacted to protect the integrity of the work. The observations and reflections here are my own.

Brgy Osmeña received generator sets from the National Power Corporation back in 2008. For a community in an off-grid area, that must have felt like an arrival—like finally being seen. Sixteen years later, the generator they call BaPa, short for Barangay Power, is still running. But barely.

Without the expertise to maintain it properly, the service became unreliable. Demand grew but the supply didn’t. Some households eventually gave up on their appliances—TVs unplugged, electric fans put away—because there wasn’t enough power to justify keeping them. Some even reported that their appliances were damaged by the unreliable power. Others who could manage it acquired solar panels through microfinancing. Those who couldn’t just adjusted. Again.

Watching how eagerly the respondents here welcomed us—how much hope they placed in the possibility of the solar home system reaching their barangay—I couldn’t help but think about the people we’d interviewed elsewhere. The ones who had been subscribed to the program for more than a year. The ones who were frustrated, waiting for unit replacements that still hadn’t come. They were once eager too, probably. Will the same thing happen here? Will the novelty wear off once the battery stops charging and nobody comes to replace it? I don’t know. But I think it’s the most important question our assessment should be asking.

One respondent said something I keep thinking about. If every house in their barangay had a solar home system, he said, the streets might not be as dark as they would be tonight, after 10 PM, when the generator would bid its good night. It wasn’t a demand. It wasn’t a complaint. It was just a person imagining what normal might look like—and finding that even that felt like too much to ask for.

I hope they don’t have to wait much longer.