TAGUIG CITY, Philippines —The Department of Energy is taking the lead and serving as a role model to other government agencies and private companies in achieving energy security.
In a statement, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said they are closely monitoring their energy consumption so that they can provide strategies to help them become more energy- efficient in their daily operations.
“Under our Government Energy Management Program (GEMP), the Department of Energy has required 140 government entities to submit their electricity consumption from 2015 to 2016 to assess usage,” Cusi said.
As part of GEMP, the DOE has enlisted government agencies with available power generating units that can be enrolled for the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) to augment power supply capacity in times of Red Alert Status or when power supply reserves are thin.
“The ILP seeks to convince big load customers of Distribution Utilities and Electric Cooperatives to register so they can run their stand-by generation sets in times of energy supply deficiency to prevent power outages,” Cusi explained.
“Based on our GEMP survey, about 100 government buildings have operational gensets and these total to 85 megawatts of power supply capacity,” Cusi said.
Other energy efficiency measures that the DOE enjoins government agencies to adhere to include setting the thermostat of air-conditioners to no lower than 25°C; replacing aircon units with inverter-type, and switching fluorescent lamps with light-emitting diode (LED) lights.
Aside from requesting government institutions, the DOE asked nearly 70 malls nationwide to set their cooling system’s temperature to 25°C as a way to temper their huge buildings’ demand for electricity.
DOE leads energy efficiency and conservation initiatives
