Energy landscape

Solar PV panels mounted on the rooftops of Ateneo de Davao University are changing the Davao city landscape and hopefully, the energy future of Mindanao.

 

Mirrors

Almost a decade after they installed the first solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the rooftops of the university buildings, engineers at the Ateneo de Davao University explore tapping another power from the sun: heat captured in this parabolic dish of the concentrated solar thermal power facility in Bangkal campus. Unlike PV cell that converts light into electricity, CSP uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight into its receiver to produce heat--which is then used to spin a turbine or power an engine to generate electricity. 

Harvesting the Sun

I was about to say, "Hey, do you have the feet of a butiki? Whatever happens to you will be my responsibility," but I knew he wouldn't listen, I knew how hard headed they all are, and I was thinking, not only of him but them, in general. I would only sound like a helpless schoolmarm, a subject of future conversations. And so, I restrained myself; I just stared and stayed there, taking photos.

Sikwate and Puto Maya

Two nights without getting a wink of sleep and I lapsed into a trance.  I loved it. I was stripped of all animal emotions (except fear and panic, which was what brought me to that state in the first place), but all in all, I was capable only of that and the higher emotions of love and longing for God to come and rescue me from my deadlines.  On the second day, when I finally saw the glimpse of a read back before the break of dawn, in between the unholy hours before the cock's crowing, I dragged Ja to the Bankerohan public market, where we had a hearty breakfast of sikwate and puto maya. 

What my desk looked like in November