PLDT Inc. continues to expand the adoption of greening solutions as it increases renewable energy (RE) sourcing for 17 facilities, including its main offices in Makati City, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
It said it now has access to an increasing amount of RE from the Competitive Retail Electricity Market (CREM) for select high-power consuming facilities with a combined electricity demand of more than 15,000 kilowatts (kW) per month, under an agreement with Meralco’s local retail electricity unit, MPower.
Through CREM, businesses with an electricity demand of at least 500 kW have the option to select their electricity provider and negotiate for their power rates.
PLDT said this move is projected to initially reduce its carbon emissions by around 18,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, to support its decarbonization roadmap that targets 40 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The company said its facilities that are now powered by RE include the PLDT main office at the Ramon Cojuangco Building and Makati General Office which has an aggregate power demand of approximately over 2,200 kW per month.
“Embracing RE is a strategic step in transforming how we power connectivity. As our customers – whether large enterprises or individual consumers – are becoming more conscious of sustainability and increasingly concerned about their environmental impact, we are evolving alongside and building a network that is not only reliable and far-reaching but also aligned with the vision for a greener future,” Menardo Jimenez Jr., PLDT chief operating officer and head of network, said.
Earlier, PLDT and its wireless unit Smart Communications Inc. have registered 153 sites into the retail aggregation program (RAP) which enables access to RE for facilities with a combined energy demand of over 2,500 kW per month.
By year-end, the companies are also eyeing to expand further RAP coverage to more sites in Visayas and Mindanao.
Alongside the use of RE, PLDT said it is also continuously upgrading its fixed network from copper to fiber optic cable, which generates less heat and no longer requires cooling systems, as compared to previous technologies. Smart also said that it has been leveraging the use of artificial intelligence to track network activity and optimize energy use of its cell sites across the country.
