THE good news is that power retailer Manila Electric Co. has assured us of stable power supply for homes and offices under their service areas during the peak of summer months.
It may not be too much to also expect the same deliverable from non-Meralco areas serviced by regional players and rural electric cooperatives.
The Department of Energy (DOE) was also spot on in its earlier call to consumers to be mindful on how they use their electricity during this summer season.
Among its practical suggestions is for power users to avoid “high-energy-consuming” activities from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays and 6 to 9 p.m. during weekends.
Businesses that rely on lunch traffic like shopping malls, restaurants, cinemas and, even sleazy motels, will find this suggestion problematic.
Organizing a weekend bonding with families and friends or even a political campaign rally would take a backseat in view of this energy-saving tip since most of these occur during the 6 to 9 p.m. window.
Hotels and resorts that have weekend clients booking evening events also run the risk of non-compliance.
‘… it helps a lot if the public can see that the state bureaucracy is also seriously doing its share.’
While the definition of what constitutes a high-power-consuming event varies, such energy-saving prescription is still a pill worth considering.
Filipinos are voracious consumers of electricity, logging in an annual increase of 3.5% in consumption since 2020. Government data shows that households consumed the most electricity with 37,000 gigawatt (GW) hours in 2023 followed by business and industrial sector with 29,500 GW hours.
Based on DOE’s projections for 2025, Luzon will use up as much as 14,769 megawatts (MW) of power, the Visayas 3,111 MW, and Mindanao 2,789 MW. Despite supply appearing stable, the country’s power insecurity will persist as conventional sources of energy run dry. For now, the country and its stewards could only work on optimizing energy supply vis a vis consumption.
But residential, small and big businesses are bound and will always consume power as they deem fit to sustain their daily existence and survival. For the government side, it helps a lot if the public can see that the state bureaucracy is also seriously doing its share.
In February this year, the Civil Service Commission was alarmed over a Commission on Audit (COA) report that the government’s total electricity bills had run up to a whopping P49 billion in 2023, P3 billion higher than the P46 billion it racked up in the previous year.
The 2023 COA report also found out that local government units also jacked up their power receipts to P21.5 billion in 2023 from P20.3 billion in 2022.
A silver lining though was that electricity bills of state corporations fell by P400 million to P7.7 billion from P8.1 billion in the same period.
In January 2024, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the fast tracking of the Government Energy Management Program (GEMP) which commits all government agencies including state corporations and colleges to save on electricity and fuel.
The President expects the accelerated GEMP, a key feature of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act, to bring in P2 billion in state-wide electricity and fuel savings coming off from a P300-million savings in 2023.
The DOE has yet to disclose preliminary numbers if the P2-billion goal was realized.
Maybe we can ramp up the level of cooperation among households and businesses in conserving a fast-depleting resource if government agencies often perceived as corrupt will take the lead in showing their billions in saved electricity.
