Community-Owned Micro-Hydro Lighting Up Remote Philippine Villages

Green Empowerment partners with local organizations to design and build community-owned renewable energy and water systems in off-grid villages across Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. In the Philippines, its two-decade partnership with local NGO SIBAT has helped build roughly 30 community-based micro-hydro systems that harness mountain rivers to electrify Indigenous Igorot villages in the Cordillera region, powering homes, schools, clinics, and small mills. Residents typically pay a fraction of national grid rates and manage the systems themselves through local energy committees. Since its founding in 1997, Green Empowerment and its partners have reached more than 670,000 people with clean energy and water access worldwide.