The Senate of the Philippines has finally approved two bills to help energy consumers – Senate Bill 1531 or the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act of 2018 to improve the country’s energy efficiency and conservation run-throughs and Senate Bill 1623 or Recoverable System Loss Act to reduce the amount of the system’s loss passed onto consumers.
Senate Bill 1531 would help create a National Efficiency and Conservation Plan, which will delimit the country’s targets, specify strategies, and execute a regular monitoring and evaluation system thus ordering the efficient and wise use of energy resources.
In the interim, Senate Bill 1623 aims to reduce the present system loss caps passed on to consumer’s electric bills from 8.5 percent to five percent for private distribution utilities (DUs) and from 13 to 10 percent for electric cooperatives (ECs).
“We are helping shape the consciousness of our consumers, including the government, through a change in the policy regime regulating energy consumption. The strategies detailed in this measure are all poised to provide not only savings for the government but also more money in people’s pockets,” Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said.
This huge step will direct the country to save around Php1.6 trillion from 2018 to 2030 or an average of Php126.4 billion per annum.
Source: Senate.gov.ph