The Philippine Energy Efficiency Alliance (PE2) said the Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EEC) Act will continue to drive incremental volumes of energy efficiency investments in the next five to 10 years.
Alexander Ablaza, PE2 president, said aside from the commercial and industrial sectors, transport establishments are also seen catching up with significant investment volumes.
The group’s comments were issued after the Department of Energy (DOE) energy efficiency investments by power-intensive industries reached P6.8 billion, based on the Annual Energy Efficiency and Conservation and Annual Energy Consumption Reports submitted by designated establishments (DEs) for compliance period of 2021 to 2022. DEs are private entities in the commercial, industrial, transport, power, agriculture, public works and other sectors identified by the DOE as energy-intensive industries based on their annual consumption from the previous year.
Ablaza EE investments in the future will be driven by the availability of “innovative financing such as energy service company (ESCO) performance contracts” to generate a new pipeline that cannot be supported by end-users’ capital resources.
Ablaza added mandatory energy audits will also identify new EE projects to be implemented apart from the expected catchup of transport establishments to keep up with commercial and industrial sectors for EE investments.
Energy efficiency investments are poured into projects that use energy-efficient technologies and practices which include new installation, upgrading or retrofitting specific equipment or devices such as lighting retrofit, automated lighting control system or smart control system, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning upgrades, boiler replacement and other similar devices or equipment.
DEs are mandated to integrate energy management system policy into their business operation, geared toward businesses committed to disclosing and reducing their emissions and dedicated to developing a policy to make their operations more energy efficient.
DEs are also mandated to set up programs to develop and design measures that promote energy efficiency, conservation and sufficiency, including installation of renewable energy technologies and the conduct of an energy audit by engaging a certified energy auditor once every three years apart from the submission of energy consumption reports to the DOE.
