Since 1988, the Department of Energy has been pushing for the approval of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act (RA 11285). The Act had been under review since the 8th congress before being applied for the next years. Then, DOE, after many years of trying to move this act forward, has finally achieved it in 2019 thru the approval of the Bicameral Conference Committee. Even with this development, the Philippines is still the last one in the South East Asian Region to implement a law that incentivizes the use of energy efficiency products to reduce energy consumption.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act institutionalize energy efficiency and conservation, enhancing the efficient use of energy, granting incentives to energy efficiency and conservation projects. Also, the act aims to standardize energy consumption measures by the regulation of energy efficient technologies in buildings.
Furthermore, the act will mandate the creation of a National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Plan that defines national targets, details feasible strategies, and imposes a regular monitoring and evaluation system which will be reflected by LGUs on a local level.
Aside from that, the government will also create an Inter-Agency Energy Efficiency and Conservation Committee that will provide direction on the implementation of the Government Energy Management Program. The main focus of the program is to reduce energy consumption thru electricity and petroleum products of government agencies.
As per the chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, Senator Win Gatchalian, its approval will be helpful as it does not include problems heralded by creating more plants to cater to the power needs of the future generation. He said that if we are saving energy now, we might not need to worry about adding more plants in the near future.
With this development, the World Bank projects that the government will be able to save at least 3.4 billion pesos per year by using energy efficient projects. Also, a 10% increase in energy efficiency will give us a saving s of at least 55 billion pesos which will decrease electricity bills of households for at least 140 pesos monthly.
How will this affect businesses? Contributing to the goal of reducing energy consumption should also be considered by businesses, because of the long term benefits this endeavor entails To this, there are different technologies out there in the market that can assist in energy efficiency.
If you are thinking of using Envision Monitoring System to help you get incentives for efficiently using energy, let us know. Envision is an Energy Monitoring System with a goal of efficient energy use and reduced energy consumption in your facilities. With that, we’ll show you how you can contribute to reducing the ever-growing demand of energy consumption here in the Philippines.
