BANI is your average rural municipality in the Philippines — ranked a second-class town with fishing and agriculture as the main livelihood of its more or less 50,000 population living in a land area of 180 square kilometers.

But Bani, located on the western coast of Pangasinan, is aiming to be a cut above the average by becoming a model “green city” by 2020.

As part of that goal, the local government has attracted foreign investments for the development of green energy,

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is bankrolling a P90-million windmill project while a Spanish group is planning a biomass plant, both of which will be pilot initiatives.

The windmill project, expected to produce 500 kilowatts of power, will be tied up with the construction of an ice-making plant and fish ports.

“JICA would like to prove that the ice plant and fish port can be run by electricity generated by the windmills. This is green energy.” Navarro explained.

Meanwhile, the biomass energy project, which is still in the planning stage, will use rice husks and rice stalks to produce energy.

“The rice husks and stalks will be placed in a boiler and be channeled to a generator that can produce five megawatts of electricity,” the mayor said.

When asked why his town is almost always chosen as host for pilot projects, Navarro replied “These funding agencies are looking for local government units that are not tainted with corruption, only good governance.” (PIA-Pangasinan)

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