TOKYO, Japan – Guidelines implementing a government-wide energy saving program is seen generating an estimated P2 billion, the Department of Energy (DOE) said on Thursday. The guidelines implementing Administrative Order 15 signed earlier by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should be out the latest by mid-February.
AO 15 implements the Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EEC) Act mandating public entities under the Executive branch, including government-owned and controlled corporations, government financial institutions, their subsidiaries and state universities and colleges.
With the guidelines in place, an estimated P2 billion cost savings this year from both electricity and fuel is forecast compared to only P300 million last year.
The DOE said last year’s electricity savings equaled over 30 million kilowatt-hours over and above more than P25 million more fuel savings from an equivalent 386,083.59 liters of fuel.
This resulted from 1,210 audited government offices of the estimated 8,000 entities surveyed.
“We’re coming out with additional implementing guidelines before February 14, that is the instruction. Under the issuance, we have to monitor. What we see right now, be it the government, households or businesses, starts with being aware of where your consumption is. Sometimes, a lot of things are taken for granted and (appliances and devices are) left unplugged,” Patrick Aquino, DOE director of the Energy Utilization Management Bureau, told reporters in a briefing here.
According to Aquino, the DOE will breakdown the performance of the different government agencies in terms of their energy efficiency efforts.
“We remind agencies to re-examine their operations and identify spikes in terms of (power) consumption they can immediately address,” he said.
Alexander Ablaza, Philippine Energy Efficiency Alliance (PE2) president, said AO 15 amplifies the urgency and need for accelerating the Government Energy Management Program (GEMP).
“GEMP compliance cuts across national government agencies, local government units, state universities and colleges, government-owned and controlled corporations and even foreign posts. And if all these public entities succeed in contributing energy saving impacts from 2024 to 2026, the government not only inspires replication by other sectors but more immediately free up significant energy supply requirements both in the grid and the fuel market, especially when supply buffers run thin in a time of the El Niño and global energy market uncertainties,” he said.
