The National Power Corp. (Napocor), the state-owned utility responsible for supplying electricity to the country’s remote areas, is looking for private sector investors to help fund its five-year transition away from expensive diesel reliance toward renewable energy.

Napocor President Jericho Nograles told reporters in a recent interview that they are preparing to deploy the pilot solar-diesel hybridization facility on Ticao Island in Masbate province.

Nograles said the project aims to integrate renewable sources alongside existing state-funded diesel generators to establish a model for scalable commercial expansion. Legal and regulatory compliance checks are underway before construction begins.

While Nograles did not specify the generation capacity for the Ticao pilot, the initiative serves as the anchor for a broader strategy to revamp energy infrastructure in off-grid islands. To accelerate development, the state utility is calling on corporate power developers to assume funding responsibilities for subsequent rollouts.

Napocor is currently structuring its fiscal 2027 government budget allocation, and Nograles wants the private sector to develop and deploy these hybrid systems ahead of the national government's timeline for 2028 through 2030.

Hybridization couples solar arrays or wind turbines with older, carbon-intensive internal combustion generators. The technology helps stabilize regional grids while driving down fuel import overheads, which eventually yields lower electricity rates for retail consumers and helps meet national targets for a cleaner energy mix.

The government-owned corporation faces technical inefficiencies in its existing assets. Nograles criticized previous off-grid clean energy installations that were constructed without proper engineering, noting that some facilities yield only a four percent to 10 percent reduction in diesel fuel reliance.

Properly designed microgrids should achieve a baseline of 50 percent to 100 percent in operational fuel savings to achieve true economic viability, he said.

Beyond solar and wind initiatives, Napocor is collaborating with the National Irrigation Administration to maximize the output of provincial run-of-river hydroelectric operations. The joint administrative steps will synchronize irrigation infrastructure upgrades with dam improvements to increase peak generation capacity.

The utility has completed four of its 12 scheduled hybridization projects for the year as it races against rising fuel expenses.

The state-owned firm shoulders the financial deficit of supplying off-grid areas with electricity through the Universal Charge for Missionary Electrification, a subsidy levied on grid-connected electricity consumers nationwide.