Government entities had been flagged for what is deemed as low compliance to the prescriptions of the Energy Efficiency Law, primarily with the initial step for them to designate their respective energy efficiency and conservation (EE&C) officers.
As noted by Senate Committee on Energy Chairman Sherwin T. Gatchalian, out of the 7,441 government offices covered by the Government Energy Management Program (GEMP) under Republic Act 11285, only 24 percent or about 1,760 outlets have actually complied with the requirement on EE&C officer enlistment; while 76-percent had been classified as non-compliant.
For the State to properly measure the EE&C course of action as well as cost and energy resource savings of government agencies, the law decreed that each entity must designate an officer who will then lead the agency in its planning and adoption of EE&C strategies.
In the view of Gatchalian, who is the principal author of the EE&C Act, “the government should lead the way in complying with the provisions of the law institutionalizing energy efficiency and conservation.”
The Department of Energy (DOE), which is leading the Inter-Agency Energy Efficiency and Conservation Committee (IAEECC), has recently laid down plans to carry out spot checks on government agencies to assess their compliance with the 10-percent mandated savings on their energy usage – covering both their consumption of electricity as well as fuel on their vehicle fleets.
The energy department similarly emphasized that the head of the non-compliant agencies shall be meted with penalties – especially if they will just log ‘one star rating’, which entails then that they have a failing mark.
The rollout of EE&C strategies under the GEMP, in particular, shall cover all government entities -- including the national government agencies (NGAs); government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs); government financial institutions (GFIs); state colleges and universities (SCUs) and the local government units (LGUs).
Gatchalian specified that when the law was enacted, “we want to institutionalize energy efficiency and conservation as a national way of life to secure sufficiency and stability of energy supply in the country and to help cushion the impact of high prices of imported fuels.”
He qualified that the targeted benefits will be reduced carbon assault on the environment; and it will also come lighter on consumers’ pockets and paychecks.
And as the country is recurrently tormented with tight power supply predicaments -- primarily for the main power grid of Luzon -- energy efficiency and conservation had likewise been lined up among the suite of solutions that can shave off peak demand that could then spare consumers from the dreaded experience of rotational blackouts.