Proposed Philippines Net Metering Rules

Proposed Philippines Net Metering Rules

Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants

The main reason why coal is going cheaper for Philippine Power Plants is that coal thermal plants in the US is now going to be required to meet stiff emission standards.

Question. Is US emission standards applicable to Philippines settings? 

Answer: Why not... US and Philippines share the same planet called Earth.

Then it is imperative that coal power plants that is going to be constructed wherever in the Philippines now and the future shall (not should, but SHALL) follow the strictest emission standard available, whether it is in US or in Europe not because we are just getting in alignment with them but because we share one EARTH. - EastGreenfields

Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants

EPA is proposing to take common-sense steps under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon pollution from new power plants. EPA’s proposed standard reflects the ongoing trend in the power sector to build cleaner plants that take advantage of American-made technologies. The agency’s proposal, which does not apply to plants currently operating or new permitted plants that begin construction over the next 12 months, is flexible and would help minimize carbon pollution through the deployment of the same types of modern technologies and steps that power companies are already taking to build the next generation of power plants. EPA’s proposal would ensure that this progress toward a cleaner, safer and more modern power sector continues. 

Power plants are the largest individual sources of carbon pollution in the United States and currently there are no uniform national limits on the amount of carbon pollution that future power plants will be able to emit. Consistent with the US Supreme Court’s decision, in 2009, EPA determined that greenhouse gas pollution threatens Americans' health and welfare by leading to long lasting changes in our climate that can have a range of negative effects on human health and the environment.


Basic Information

In 2009, EPA determined that greenhouse gas pollution threatens Americans' health and welfare by leading to long lasting changes in our climate that can have a range of negative effects on human health and the environment.

There are currently no uniform national limits on the amount of carbon pollution future power plants will be able to emit, and they are the largest individual source of carbon pollution in the country. EPA's proposed standard reflects the ongoing trend in the power sector to build cleaner plants that take advantage of American-made technologies.

Carbon pollution and health

This standard ensures that power companies investing in long-lived new fossil fuel fired power plants will use clean technologies that limit harmful carbon pollution.

Carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere and contributes to climate change, which is a threat to public health and the environment for current and future generations.  

EPA is taking common-sense steps to limit these emissions, by addressing emissions from fossil-fired power plants, which are the largest new sources of carbon pollution. 

Unchecked greenhouse gas pollution threatens Americans' health and welfare by leading to long-lasting changes in our climate. 

 The health risks from climate change are especially serious for children, the elderly, and those with heart and respiratory problems. 

Cleaner, dependable energy

The nation’s electricity comes from diverse and largely domestic energy sources, including fossil fuels, nuclear, hydro and, increasingly, renewable energy sources. The proposed standard would not change this fact, and EPA put a focus on ensuring this standard provides a pathway forward for a range of important domestic resources, including coal with technologies that reduce carbon emissions.

The proposed rule would apply only to new fossil-fuel-fired electric utility generating units (EGUs). For purposes of this rule, fossil-fuel-fired EGUs include fossil-fuel-fired boilers, integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) units and stationary combined cycle turbine units that generate electricity for sale and are larger than 25 megawatts (MW). 

EPA’s proposal reflects the ongoing trend in the power sector—a shift toward cleaner power plants that take advantage of modern technologies that will become the next generation of power plants. EPA’s proposed rule would ensure this progress continues.  

New plants can choose to burn any fossil fuel to generate electricity, including natural gas as well as coal with the help of technologies that reduce carbon emissions.

Source:
http://www.epa.gov/carbonpollutionstandard/

What’s wrong with the Philippines?

(EastGreenfields note: In celebration of the 29th year of the death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino, we will give space for one of his essay)

What’s wrong with the Philippines?

By Benigno S. Aquino Jr.

First Posted 00:39:00 08/21/2010

(Editors note: The following essay, written by the assassinated father of President Aquino, appeared in the Solidarity quarterly journal in 1985. The President’s father was murdered at the Manila International Airport on Aug. 21, 1983, upon his return from voluntary exile in the United States. The Inquirer obtained the permission of Solidarity to reprint this on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of his martyrdom.) 

MANILA, Philippines—A diplomat, after a seven-year tour of duty in the Philippines, once christened the islands as an “enchanting archipelago.” Whether he was merely being polite, or had succumbed to government pitchmen, or had himself become enchanted by the lush tropical beauty of the islands, he should also have seen a country wracked by afflictions, some common to all countries engaged in the desperate race to develop, some peculiar to the Philippines.

Purveyors of the rosy picture continue to roll out endless statistics and charts to depict a growing economy, a country on the move. A portion of this view may even be accepted, considering that the Philippines, with all its imperfections, is only 21 years old as a free republic. The trouble is that there is one vital natural resource that has not been properly developed: the people.

Beneath the outpourings of self-serving government data, hidden underneath the trappings of the good life in the big cities, there remains a depressed and dispirited people. Against the yardstick, not of statistics but of quality of life, the Filipino people as a whole are a melancholy—if patient—mass. Their daily diet is monotonous (rice, fish, vegetables), their clothes are threadbare and their homes primitive and crowded. What could they hope to build on a daily per capita income of just over 25 cents? In sum, the blessings of liberty do not include liberation from poverty.

Foreign gadgetry and other luxury goods continue to flood the cities, and more people travel, despite current government restrictions. But this only serves to dramatize the great disparities and chronic inequities of Filipino society. Indeed, the Philippines is a land of traumatic contrasts. Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. Gleaming suburbia clashes with the squalor of the slums. Here is a land where freedom and its blessings are a reality for a minority and an illusion for the many. Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here, too, are a people whose ambitions run high, but whose fulfillment is low and mainly restricted to the self-perpetuating elite. 

Here is a land of privilege and rank—a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste.Caste spells bondage. Of this the contemporary Filipino is well aware. And to break through—to rise out of this bondage into the next higher social stratum—is the ambition of the tao, the Filipino common man. For him, education appears at first the ticket to his aspirations, and parents sell their last worldly possessions, even go deep into debt, to see a son or a daughter through college. But each year, no less than 65,000 swell the ranks of this army of the discontented, educated unemployed. Unemployment runs up to a million, while the under-employed represent 20 to 25 percent of the population, largely in the rural areas. The upsurge of the communist Huks in Central Luzon is but one chilling manifestation of peasant disillusionment. Another is the recent wave of crime which has converted the country into a land of terror in time of peace.

Add to this a government which is financially almost bankrupt, state agencies ridden by debts and honeycombed with graft, industries in pathetic distress, prices in a continuing spiral and there is good reason for the Filipino to feel sapped of confidence, hope and will. The new, young Filipino leaders who exhort their peers to be activists, and not to give up, are greeted with apathy and indifference.

In the early thirties, Manuel L. Quezon, as he led the fight for independence, once raged: “I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than one run like heaven by the Americans.” The father of his country did not live to see this preference realized, but his political heirs have. Since independence, Philippine presidents have logged a grand total of 14 national plans and all they have to show for them is a nation that looks, sounds, and feels discouraged. It is confused by the multiplicity of its cravings, and concerns, floundering in haphazard attempts to modernize and innovate.

Government apologists predictably will disagree with these conclusions. Great strides have been made, they will maintain, and they can indeed produce the required statistics to back up their claims. But the assertion that development is accelerating is only partly correct. “Orderly growth and evolution require delicate synchronization,” Filipino economist Sixto K. Roxas has cogently argued. And this is precisely what is wanting in Philippine economic planning.

Champagne taste on beer income

The truth is that there has been no organized, no methodical over-all economic planning. At best, all that our previous planners have trotted out have been limited programs which, tragically for the people, have bred individual hustling and pushing while the overall economy ran inconclusively in every direction. The result has been impasse in the development of critical sectors of the economy, such as the metal, chemical, wood, plastics and food industries.

For a people who at independence set out to pursue the American way of life as the ideal, the Filipinos—21 years later—are nowhere near the mark. “We are,” one Filipino declared in self-reproach, “a people with champagne taste, operating on a beer income.” Actually quite a number of Filipinos cannot even afford beer.

The annual per capita income is less than $100, less than Communist China’s today and equal to Japan’s only way back in 1910. The gross national product grows between 5 and 6 percent per year, but it is offset by a ballooning population increasing at a rate of 3.4 percent per year, one of the world’s highest. The GNP growth, in fact is hardly enough to absorb the backlog of unemployed and underemployed, to say nothing of improving the people’s standard of living.

Who’s to blame?

Fault, if it must be fixed, belongs not to any single man or people. It lies in the fabric of the society—and in what went into its making. Too many Filipinos are without purpose and without discipline. They profess love of country, but love themselves individually—more. When then Senate President Jose Avelino, in an expansive mood, exclaimed, “What are we in power for?” and when much later President Carlos P. Garcia defended a Cabinet member’s right to “prepare for his future,” these leaders were articulating a common outlook.

Without a soul

The responsibility belongs also to those who came, conquered, and ruled—to America as much as to Spain. For all the good they did (Spain welded and Christianized the people, America democratized them), they are responsible for the worst in the Filipino. While bleeding them, they molded the Filipinos in their own images, Spain Hispanizing, and America Americanizing the natives. Almost half of a century of American rule bequeathed to the Asian Filipino a trauma by making him uncomfortably American in outlook, values and tastes. What was left was a people without a soul.

Filipinos are bewildered about their identity. They are an Asian people not Asian in the eyes of their fellow Asians and not Western in the eyes of the West. They are in Asia, but they know more about the Statue of Liberty than about Angkor Wat in Cambodia; more of the lyrics of Whitman than of Tagore or of their own Nick Joaquin; more of Patrick Henry’s soul-stirring liberty-or-death oratory than of the ageless wisdom of Confucius or Lao-tze. Lately, they have taken to insisting they are Asian but they are so American-oriented that—by reflex—they still react and respond like little brown Americans.

Except for the hyper-nationalists, the Filipinos actually take pride in their community—if not identity—with the Americans. When President Johnson applauded President Marcos as his “right arm in Asia,” there was some derisive reaction from nationalist quarters but, in the main, the people took it as a badge to wear proudly on their sleeves. GI Joe at Clark, at Mactan, at John Hay, at Subic and at Sangley, America’s military bases in the Philippines, remain a symbol of American protection. Herein lies the bigger Filipino problem.

Legacy of the West

Too many Filipinos are given to dodging their responsibilities, running to others for help when they should be on their own feet. This, too, is a legacy of the West. The writer Renato Constantino has put it well: “As a people, we have been deprived for centuries of responsibilities for our destiny. Under the Americans, while ostensibly we were being prepared for self-government, for self-reliance, actually we were being maneuvered by means of political and economic pressures to defer to American decisions (and) being conditioned by our American education to prefer American ways.’’ The result is a people habituated to abdicating control over basic areas of their national life, unaccustomed to coming to grips with reality, prone to escape into fantasies.

Some conjecture that a more tragic fate might have overtaken the Filipinos if Spain had not stumbled upon them in 1521—a fate perhaps, some shudder, like that which befell Indonesia, Indochina, or the Congo. There is nothing to support this speculation; the fact is, the navigator Fernando Magallanes found on these islands well-ordered societies with their own culture. He was slain on Mactan island by a Filipino, Lapu-Lapu, the first Asian to fight and defeat a Western invader. But the Spanish king and Cortez were bent on empire and, in historian Arnold Toynbee’s words, “The Philippines was held for Spain by a handful of soldiers, administrators, and friars after the fashion of the Spanish empire of the Indies.”

With the cross and the sword, Spain stamped out the native culture, commerce and government. The people’s codes and laws, their weights and measures, their literature and even their alphabet were destroyed. There were, of course, periods in Spain’s 377 years of domination when liberal governors ruled, but in the main, Spanish rule was oppressive. No less than two hundred revolts marked the Spanish rule; the last—the Katipunan Revolution of 1896—finally broke Spain’s reign with American military help.

Frying pan into the fire

Filipino jubilation was short-lived, however. A republic was proclaimed by the victorious revolutionaries on June 12, 1898, but the Spanish-American War had already cast its shadow over the Filipino destiny. In the Treaty of Paris of 1898, defeated Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States for $20 million over vociferous but futile Filipino protests. “The Filipino freedom fighter,” comments Toynbee, “now found that they had fallen out of the frying pan into the fire.”

From the very beginning, Washington officials denied any ambition of empire. They rationalized their Pacific acquisition as a humane and civilizing job. President McKinley, so it is recorded, dropped on his knees and prayed to God for guidance. “And one night,” he said, “it all came to me this way—that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”

Hokum or truth? A good number of Filipino patriots rejected America’s proclaimed benevolence and kept up the guerrilla fight for independence not only in the mountains but also in their newspapers and literature. In their struggle, they drew moral backing from diverse foreign powers including Imperial Japan, which gave sanctuary to fleeing Filipino rebels.

After “pacifying” the islands (except the hinterlands of Muslim Mindanao), America set out to refashion the Filipinos. In this there was method as well as design. American teachers came first, followed by American missionaries, then by American public officials. So successful were they that the Filipinos were soon thinking, acting, and living American. And so proud was the United States, it was soon calling the country America’s “showcase of democracy” in Asia. The Filipinos liked the label too, such had been the degree of their Americanization. Filipinos, indeed, have much to thank the United States for. With “the happiness, peace and prosperity” of the Filipinos as the official colonial policy, America gave the Filipinos a new language, schools, free trade, government and laws. It strove to curb disease. It also gave the Filipinos a vigorous journalism, something Filipinos point to with pride. Branded as irresponsible at times, the Philippine press nonetheless has been the unofficial loyal opposition, the strongest deterrent to unbridled graft. And most important, perhaps, the United States kept the regionalistic and volatile Filipinos from breaking up.

Mentor’s neuroses

What if the United States had not come and the First Republic in 1898 had not been aborted? Philippine Ambassador to Washington Salvador P. Lopez, who, as foreign secretary, charted the Philippines’ dramatic turn away from the United States and back toward Asia, answered “... the Philippines would have developed a political system resembling, on the one hand, the self-perpetuating oligarchies of Latin America and, on the other the ‘guided democracy’ of Indonesia. In addition, the young republic would have been confronted almost immediately by challenges to its authority, in particular by serious separatist movements in the Visayas and in Moslem Mindanao and Sulu.” American colonial rule, he affirmed, moderated all these and permitted a new “Philippine society to develop along more democratic lines.”

What the United States fashioned, in fact, is a democratic plural society, a society that finds unity in its diversity. It is a society, some say, as American as the United States itself. It may not have the dollars, but it certainly has the tastes and habits, the wheelings and dealings, the idiosyncracies and neuroses of its recent mentor. And it is —or has been—committed four-square to America, to what America stands for—more than the United States itself, perhaps. In its anticommunism, for example, Manila is more rigid than Washington.

In three wars, the Philippines has stepped forward and fought with the United States—against the Japanese in the epic holding battles of Bataan and Corregidor, against the North Koreans and Communist Chinese in Korea, against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese now. Clearly, President Marcos voiced the Filipino sentiment when he explained why he brought the Philippines into the Viet Nam war: because, he said, the United States was already in the fray.

Increasingly, however, there are signs of disaffection from the United States. Where it was almost unthinkable to criticize America 10 years ago, more and more Filipinos speak out today against the Americans, if not America itself. The change is seen in anti-American demonstrations and in the search for new partners in Asia and in Europe. Behind it, too, is a renaissance of Filipino nationalism and a growing awareness of where the country is—in Asia. But the main reason is the failure of the United States —in Filipino eyes—to give meaning to the vaunted special relationship; American performance falls short of the promise.

Built-in strings

In this atmosphere, the negative aspects of US policy are surfacing. Approval of parity—equal rights for Americans in the exploitation of Philippine natural resources—is now seen as imposed by the United States on a people left prostrate by World War II, as a condition for American War-damage funds. “The net effect of parity,” Education Undersecretary Onofre Corpus warned the United States, “has been an erosion of the Filipinos’ belief in the United States’ capacity for fair dealing with her friends and allies.”

Filipinos in growing numbers now believe that the independence granted by the United States in 1946 had built-in strings designed to perpetuate American economic dominance—or “colonialism,” as the ultra-nationalists call it. And they point to the trade agreement which has kept the Philippines a supplier of raw materials for American’s mills and a market for American goods. Of course, the onerous provision of the original agreement was rewritten in the Laurel-Langley pact of 1956, but very few Filipinos understand this refinement.

A few Filipino ultra-nationalists, well-positioned and very articulate, would sever all special relations with the United States, putting the Philippines on the path of non-alignment. This of course, is foolhardy. With the nuclear-armed and power-minded Communist China casting a covetous shadow over all of free Asia, the Philippines needs the United States more than ever; the only other choices left to her are to go Red or fall dead.

One truth persists here: the Philippines like the rest of Free Asia, needs America’s continued military presence in the area. Like the others, she needs America as a dam and shield against the Chinese Communists. This need has never been more urgently felt than since President Johnson’s dramatic announcement at the end of March and the beginning of negotiations with the North Vietnamese. Will the United States pull out, as the French and the British have done? This is the common fear of free Asians. For the Filipinos, with a million Chinese unassimilated in their midst, it is more than a fear; it is a spectre.

Breaking the fetters

The Philippines today needs to make bold efforts to break away from the fetters of the past. She must review and revise her so-called special relationships with the United States, taking into account the world as it is, and ceasing to live on the myths and heroics that so welded and so sustained her in the past. The Filipinos ask simply for dignity in their relations with the United States and equality with others in the American-led community of nations. They resent the fact that Japan, a former enemy, has obtained more from the United States than has the Philippines, and that Spain, a totalitarian state, has a more favorable military bases agreement with the United States.

The Filipinos must purge, now and with finality, the cause of their past shame: US puppetry. What they must seek is partnership with the United States, not wardship. If a fresh viability can be forged out of the old tissues of past kinship, so much the better. But this should be farthest from both the Filipino and American minds. A New Spirit must be infused into the Filipino and American relations of today. And it must be applied to the new mutual defense and military bases agreements. These are the main problems that have vexed Filipino-American relations so much in the sixties; approached with a fresh outlook, they could yield a more durable Filipino-American relationship.

Happily, despite the growing swell of anti-American criticism in the Filipino press, there is no hatred for whites on the islands. This is because, it would seem, Americans neither tyrannized nor brutalized the Filipinos in their 48-year rule. In fact, Filipinos, in the main, fondly remember the Big Brother gestures and kindnesses of the GI who liberated the islands in 1945. Out in the country especially, the Americano is still as much a symbol of help, friendship and good will as ever. As before, this is a good augury.

Much to be done

There is much to be done at home. In addition to breaking away from America’s economic dominance, the Filipinos themselves must outgrow the colonial attitude which now impedes the modernization process. Fortunately, there are many latent forces which can be energized. Anyone who has lived in the Philippines will attest to the flexibility of the Filipinos and, most of all, to their great social mobility. There is, on the whole, an openness in the society, the creation no doubt of the egalitarian ideals of the Revolution of 1896 that have slowly seeped into the whole fabric of Philippine life during the last six decades. And this can be ascribed to the public school system which the Americans installed but which the Filipinos have molded to fit their own psyche and needs. We have, after all, been having democratic elections since 1911; many governments have come and gone without the chaos and bloodshed of revolutions and coups d’etat.

There are perhaps more trained technicians in the Philippines today than anywhere else in Southeast Asia, but the industrial growth that can absorb these technicians has not come. Moreover, the Philippines’ natural resources are among the richest in Southeast Asia, yet we are fast falling behind such countries as Malaysia and Taiwan in industrial development. Here, again the oligarchs must be made to move, to invest, to industrialize. They can be captains of industry, but instead they have elected to dig in their heels on the land.

Stirring the entrenched oligarchs into accepting the urgency of land reform is also one of the aims of the younger leadership which wants the Philippines to surge upward. Up to now, however, forces of reaction have made government efforts in this direction largely meaningless. What a few years ago was a mere revolution of rising expectations has grown to the point where some fear revolution itself. It could be sparked, not by the left, the communist-inspired Huk ideologue, but by the disillusioned, depressed and dejected educated unemployed. Clearly, the Filipino elite—the corrupt and corrupting, the irresponsible and unresponsive old leadership—must face up to the need for reform or be swept away.

The new-generation Filipino must also shake and awaken the Catholic Church, which has long ignored the need for social reform and become flabby in its position of revered irrelevance. Because the Church has grown remote from the masses, quasi-religious fanatics have banded together and prospered in the countryside. Last year 31 of them—members of the Lapiang Malaya (Freedom Party) sect—were slaughtered when they demonstrated in Manila and charged the constabulary dispatched to contain them. This was as much a failure of the Church as of the government.

The government itself must be made to respond to the demands of the middle class for a mass market. The archaic and regressive tax structure must be revamped. The wealth that the oligarchy rapaciously covets and hoards must get down to the masses in the form of roads, bridges and schools; these are what the tao understands as good or bad government.

Where salvation lies

Philippine democratic institutions, President Marcos feels, are on trial. “And they may not,” he has warned, “have a second chance to prove and sustain themselves.” The Filipino, he stressed, “must realize his salvation lies with himself.” With this, the opposition cannot disagree. Indeed, great dedication and great labor are demanded of the new Filipino.

All these are Filipino aspirations and frustrations that the Americans must clearly understand. It is they, after all, to whom the Filipinos have always turned for guidance and assistance. In handling the Philippine problem, it will be well for the United States to remember that methods and postures that have repeatedly failed in contemporary Asia cannot any longer work in the new Philippines either. Equally, the Filipinos will do well to keep in mind that invoking the dead—if epic—past will no longer work in this age of rapid revolution. For them sentimentally to rest their future and fortune on the special Filipino-American bonds and other myths of the past is likely to be fatal.

Let the sunshine in

By Dean Tony La Viña | Posted on August 21, 2012

Manila Standard Today (online version)

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2012/08/21/let-the-sunshine-in/

If solar energy is held as the poster child of the renewable energy initiative, it has also attracted criticisms. As I have earlier explained in this energy series, the first criticism is the proposed cost-per-kilowatt-hour Feed-in-Tariff rate of solar energy, which the Energy Regulatory Commission has now pegged at P9.68 (lowered from the last-proposed P14.65), is perceived to be higher than the rates Filipino consumers pay for power.

That perception already exposes flaws in that argument against solar production. Just to recap: consumers don’t pay the FiT outright, the rate they pay is computed based on production and distribution costs plus the consumer base served; depending on the production mix each distributor purchases, the solar-FiT rate averages out with inputs from lower-rate technologies like fossil fuels into the final cost consumers pay; and solar-FiT, or the investments for solar power infrastructure, is living with a known fixed cost over time, compared to gambling with the volatile variable, historically upward-trending cost of fossil fuels. Coupled with the other benefits of solar energy, the scales should be tipped towards letting the sun shine on Philippine energy policy.

The immediately-appreciable benefits of solar―zero emissions, essentially free (though intermittent) fuel supply―are well-understood and need not be repeated. We focus instead on the Philippines’ surprising suitability for solar power generation.

Even considering the heavy rain which have all but washed out Luzon the first two weeks of August, on average the Philippines gets enough sunlight to provide around 4.5-5.5 kWh per square meter per day, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. One of the benefits of the tropics, compared to latitudes closer to the poles, is the longer duration of sunlight, both within the day and across the year, boding well for sustained solar energy production.

The other key advantage of the Philippines is its specialization in electronics, and its potential for the manufacture of photovoltaic (PV) cells, the basic unit of solar electricity. In fact, we are well-poised to be a power player in solar power, argued a 2008 Bloomberg Businessweek article, considering that the country hosts the manufacturing plants for SunPower and Solaria, a well-educated and flexible engineering workforce, and a strong electronics background―for solar cell export. Both boasted of the ingenuity of its Filipino engineers in making PV cells more efficient and affordable to manufacture. All that’s needed, the article continues, is to encourage a local market for PV cells, for domestic consumers to purchase solar energy.

PV cells lend themselves to easy deployability and distribution. On the industrial scale, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, Renewable Energy Developers Center, and WWF Philippines argue that solar plants are faster to throw up than their fossil fuel equivalents: a 1-MW plant within six weeks, or an Italian 70-MW affair in nine months, compared to at least three years for a coal plant. At the user end, PV cells can be quickly and easily set up in a day or two, through the use of increasingly affordable home/rooftop solar energy kits, or integrated into the architecture of new and existing buildings in urban areas. Already this series had touched on solar’s deployment to power isolated and detached communities. It is not too labor or investment-intensive, apart from the costs of PV cells themselves (and again, increasing use generally decreases costs), to embed solar energy onto the already-existing Philippine electrical infrastructure.

On that note, further governance incentives to mainstream solar energy can ensure its place in the Philippines’ energy agenda. Allies as politically diverse as Bayan Muna’s Rep. Teddy Casiño and Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Manuel Villar are pushing solar in their respective legislative agendas, to extend financial incentives and loan assistance from government institutions to promote homeowner and end-user solar energy. Right now, we as a country are too familiar and comfortable with fossil fuel energy, even as we bemoan oil and coal prices; perhaps these legislative initiatives, if passed, will be the proverbial kick out of the nest for a fledgling Filipino solar market.

In defiance of its critics, solar energy is not the cost-burden, exotic, before-its-time bugaboo that should be warily approached. Rather, solar energy is surprisingly flexible, readily deployable, can be made affordable, a perfect fit for the Philippines―if we act now. Even the savings alone from the reduced need to import oil and coal to fuel power plants (at the producer level), or end-user solar energy production reducing household energy budgets, and the need to purchase electricity from the grid, justifies taking that first step towards sunlight. Yet that first step, to reiterate a theme of this series, can radically transform the energy sector and even Filipino lives.

Let solar light the way for the Philippines’ renewable energy agenda, and its future.

Health Advocates Push For Carbon Emission Standards At Coal Plants

From Illinois Progress (Blog)
By: Ellyn Fortino Friday May 25th, 2012


The Environmental Protection Agency held a hearing Thursday regarding the first of its kind limits on carbon dioxide emissions for new power plants.

News of the EPA’s proposed standards for power-plant emissions comes shortly after Midwest Generation announced Chicago’s two infamous coal-fired power plants, Frisk and Crawford, will shut down. Progress Illinois reported last month about Chicago’s power-plant saga.

Double lung-transplant recipient Dan Dolan-Laughlin, 65, is one of many people who planned to speak at the hearing to urge the EPA to follow through with its carbon-regulation proposal.


Dolan-Laughlin, of Wheaton, had to wear a mask while traveling to the hearing, because he received his new lungs six months ago, and they are sensitive to all forms of pollution.

He’s one of many people across the state and country whose health depends on clean air.

“Anyone with (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is so incredibly sensitive to air pollution,” Dolan-Laughlin said.

While living with COPD, Dolan-Laughlin couldn’t walk downtown because of the pollution. On high smog-alert days he wouldn’t leave his house.

It’s not only the coal-fired power plants contributing to high smog levels -- which used to trigger his asthma attacks -- but regulating new power plants is a first step toward better air quality, Dolan-Laughlin said.

“The coal plants account for 40 percent of the pollution in the air right now, and that’s a lot,” he said. “It’s something that can be controlled.”

Peter Iwanowicz, vice president of the American Lung Association and the director of the Healthy Air Campaign, said the American Lung Association, which testified at the hearing, is encouraged the EPA is moving forward with standards that will lead to the future cleanup of dirty power.

“For us, we see power plants as a real killer -- quite literally,” Iwanowicz said.

Carbon emissions contribute to rising temperatures, and rising temperatures cook the pollution that’s already in the atmosphere. That process increases ozone levels, or smog, which can cause asthma attacks, other health complications or even premature death, Iwanowicz said.

If the EPA standards are approved, power plants built in the future would not be allow to emit more than 1,000 pounds of carbon pollution for each megawatt of electricity produced—that’s about half of what some current power plants are pumping out, he said.

That standard could be lower, Iwanowicz said, but it’s a good start.

Susan Buchanan, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, said this rule is “desperately needed.”

“It may be too little too late at this point,” she said. “I’m a little frustrated that this rule applies to new plants and not to plants that are already operating.”

The current operating plants should have to abide by the same standards as the new plants, she said.

She added now is the time for carbon-emission regulation.

“Climate change is going to be one of the big challenges in public health in the 21st century,” Buchanan said, adding that droughts and changes in food production and more heat-related stress and deaths will occur because of climate change, among public health concerns.

Throughout the week, the American Lung Association’s volunteers have been walking around the downtown area, pushing red baby carriages. The baby carriages signify what’s at stake if the U.S. doesn’t come up with a power-plant solution, Iwanowicz said.

The EPA is held a hearing on the issue in Washington, D.C. the same day.

The EPA is also accepting written comments on the proposed standards until June 25, 2012, according to their web site.

Rains, floods portent of El Niño, says Pagasa

By DJ Yap
Philippine Daily Inquirer

There is more than 50-percent chance that El Niño will develop towards the end of the year and all the signs bear an ominous resemblance to the catastrophe that struck three years ago.

Nathaniel Servando, chief of the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa), expressed this fear even as he pointed out that the beginnings of El Niño could be one reason behind the enhanced monsoon, which has brought torrential rains over Metro Manila and western sections of Luzon in recent weeks.

One potential recipe for meteorological disaster is when El Niño, the abnormal warming of eastern Pacific waters, interacts with the monsoon cycle, raising water vapor levels in the air and causing cyclones to behave more unpredictably.

The last time a developing El Niño overlapped with the southwest monsoon was in September 2009, when Tropical Storm “Ondoy” wreaked havoc in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

From August 6-8, floodwaters submerged 80 percent of Metro Manila, following incessant monsoon rains that exceeded even Ondoy’s 24-hour rainfall level. There was no prevailing cyclone at the time.

“We are monitoring this very closely. Based on our data, there is now more than 50-percent chance that El Niño will hit us in the later part of 2012, most likely November or December,” Servando said.

The World Meteorological Organization was more conservative, saying there was only “a slight chance” that El Niño conditions might develop sometime during July to September, based on its latest update.

But Australia’s weather bureau said there were clear signs El Niño was developing in the Pacific, while its Japanese counterpart said the phenomenon was already underway, based on news reports.

In a June 2010 study published in the Philippine Journal of Science, scientists Servando, retired science undersecretary Graciano Yumul Jr., Carla Dimalanta and Flaviana Hilario said wet conditions generally precede an El Niño event in the Philippines.

The study noted that “in 2009, the Philippines was characterized by hazards and disasters that were mostly triggered by too much water—from floods and flash floods to landslides.”

PH electricity rates among 10 highest in survey of 44 countries

By: Euan Paulo C. Anonuevo, InterAksyon.com

MANILA - The good news first: electricity rates in the Philippines are not the highest in Asia. And now the bad news: Manila has one of the 10 most expensive power rates in the region.
In a media briefing, John C. Morris, International Energy Consultants managing director, said a study conducted by the company placed Meralco rates as the 9th most expensive out of 44 distributors.

The high intrinsic cost of power supply in the country was tagged as the main culprit for its notoriety as having one of the 10 most expensive rates. 

The country, Morris said, relies heavily on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas whose prices are pegged on international benchmarks. Even the price of natural gas from the Malampaya field in offshore Palawan is based on world oil prices.

These fuel sources account for 80 percent of power generation in the Manila Electric Co.'s service area, which covers Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

The cost of power charged by Meralco's suppliers account for 65 percent of what the latter's customers pay in their electricity bills.

Morris said Asian distributors that fared better than Meralco either had their own domestic fossil fuel supply, nuclear power plants or government subsidies.

Besides the high cost of power relative to the other surveyed countries, Morris said the Luzon grid, which covers the Meralco franchise, "is smaller [relative its regional counterparts] and has a high dependence on hydro which requires a higher reserve margin requirement", which entails additional cost.

The weighted average cost-of-capital in the Philippine power sector is also higher than most countries in the survey. On top of this, debt costs more and loan tenors shorter.

Morris said another factor that contributes to Meralco's rates are transmission costs, which are 40 percent higher than the average of the markets surveyed. 

The high cost of delivering power from generating plants to consumers, however, "may be justified" owing to the geographical nature of the country.

Transmission charges account for 9 percent of Meralco customers' bills.
The IEC study found Meralco's distribution charge - or the line item in electricity bills that directly goes to its pockets - and government taxes are on a par with many other markets.
Distribution charges and taxes comprise 16 percent and 10 percent of electricity bills, respectively. 

"Considering all of these factors, IEC believes that - on average - Meralco’s customers are currently paying a fair and reasonable price for retail electricity," Morris said.
Based on the study, the 10 locations with the highest electricity rates are Hawaii, Italy, Malta, Japan (Kansai), Cyprus, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Philippines (Meralco) and Singapore.

The country's peers in Southeast Asia ranked significantly lower in terms of electricity rates with Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia landing in the 37th, 38th and 43rd spots, respectively.
"The difference between Meralco and these countries are they provide enormous subsidies to consumers in one way of another," Morris said.

The three Asean neighbors enjoy state-subsidies that range from 36 to 54 percent of the cost of supplying electricity. Minus the impact of subsidies, the three countries would rank 14th (Malaysia), 19th (Thailand) and 17th (Indonesia) while Meralco would still be at the 9th spot.
"Meralco charges [customers] exactly as its power costs," Morris said.

Other countries, most notably China, were not included in the IEC study, which ran from January to June this year, owing to insufficient data.

Grid Tie System presentation

http://portal.sliderocket.com/BTIEO/Grid-Tie-Presentation

email: inquiry@eastgreenfields.com

Dry Lands Getting Drier, Wet Getting Wetter

Dry Lands Getting Drier, Wet Getting Wetter: Earth's Water Cycle Intensifying With Atmospheric Warming
ScienceDaily

ScienceDaily (May 20, 2012) — A clear change in salinity has been detected in the world's oceans, signalling shifts and an acceleration in the global rainfall and evaporation cycle.


In a paper just published in the journal Science, Australian scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, reported changing patterns of salinity in the global ocean during the past 50 years, marking a clear fingerprint of climate change.

Lead author, Dr Paul Durack, said that by looking at observed ocean salinity changes and the relationship between salinity, rainfall and evaporation in climate models, they determined the water cycle has strengthened by four per cent from 1950-2000. This is twice the response projected by current generation global climate models.

"Salinity shifts in the ocean confirm climate and the global water cycle have changed.

"These changes suggest that arid regions have become drier and high rainfall regions have become wetter in response to observed global warming," said Dr Durack, a post-doctoral fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

With a projected temperature rise of 3ºC by the end of the century, the researchers estimate a 24 per cent acceleration of the water cycle is possible.

Scientists have struggled to determine coherent estimates of water cycle changes from land-based data because surface observations of rainfall and evaporation are sparse. However, according to the team, global oceans provide a much clearer picture.

"The ocean matters to climate -- it stores 97 per cent of the world's water; receives 80 per cent of the all surface rainfall and; it has absorbed 90 per cent of the Earth's energy increase associated with past atmospheric warming," said co-author, Dr Richard Matear of CSIRO's Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

"Warming of the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere is expected to strengthen the water cycle largely driven by the ability of warmer air to hold and redistribute more moisture."

He said the intensification is an enhancement in the patterns of exchange between evaporation and rainfall and with oceans accounting for 71 percent of the global surface area the change is clearly represented in ocean surface salinity patterns.

In the study, the scientists combined 50-year observed global surface salinity changes with changes from global climate models and found "robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of about eight per cent per degree of surface warming," Dr Durack said.

Dr Durack said the patterns are not uniform, with regional variations agreeing with the 'rich get richer' mechanism, where wet regions get wetter and dry regions drier.

He said a change in freshwater availability in response to climate change poses a more significant risk to human societies and ecosystems than warming alone.

"Changes to the global water cycle and the corresponding redistribution of rainfall will affect food availability, stability, access and utilization," Dr Durack said.

Dr Susan Wijffels, co-Chair of the global Argo project and a co-author on the study, said maintenance of the present fleet of around 3,500 profilers is critical to observing continuing changes to salinity in the upper oceans.

The work was funded through the Australian Climate Change Science Program, a joint initiative of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO.

Source: 

CSIRO Australia (2012, May 20). Dry lands getting drier, wet getting wetter: Earth's water cycle intensifying with atmospheric warming. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 9, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2012/05/120521104631.htm

Rains (lots of rains) and Electricity Consumption

Rains (lots of rains) and Electricity Consumption
(written by EastGreenfields blog admin)

Rain (and that lots of rain) that poured down Metro Manila August 6, 7 and 8 2012 seems to be just like any rains scheduled to pour as part of the South East Asian Monsoon season... While it's true that that monstrous rain was part of the seasonal monsoon we wonder if that volume of rain is typical of monsoon rain.

Well it's not...

What really was it is that it's part of the growing pattern of increase rainfall due to global warming... yes you heard it right GLOBAL WARMING.

Since 2001, as one study shows there is an increasing rainfall volume in the tropics (Ph is in the tropics between in the middle of Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn or 23 deg N and 23 deg S of equator).

And yes just before you read the article, GLOBAL WARMING is caused by increase emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel base power plants and automobiles.

For every 1 kW-hr of electricity (generated from coal and natural gas power plants read: by Meralco) 0.68 kg of CO2 is released into the air. Simply put, 100 kW-hr consumption releases 68 kg of global warming gas... and that's thanks to you if you mindlessly switch on that light or television. (click this blog).

So every time it rains and when it rains unusually long and almost the end of the world... ask your self, did I turn on that switch again?

Here's the article. Read, learn and be aware.

Long-Term Increase In Rainfall Seen In Tropics
ScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2007)

NASA scientists have detected the first signs that tropical rainfall is on the rise with the longest and most complete data record available.


Using a 27-year-long global record of rainfall assembled by the international scientific community from satellite and ground-based instruments, the scientists found that the rainiest years in the tropics between 1979 and 2005 were mainly since 2001. The rainiest year was 2005, followed by 2004, 1998, 2003 and 2002, respectively.

"When we look at the whole planet over almost three decades, the total amount of rain falling has changed very little. But in the tropics, where nearly two-thirds of all rain falls, there has been an increase of 5 percent," says lead author Guojun Gu, a research scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The rainfall increase was concentrated over tropical oceans, with a slight decline over land.

Climate scientists predict that a warming trend in Earth's atmosphere and surface temperatures would produce an accelerated recycling of water between land, sea and air. Warmer temperatures increase the evaporation of water from the ocean and land and allow air to hold more moisture. Eventually, clouds form that produce rain and snow.

"A warming climate is the most plausible cause of this observed trend in tropical rainfall," says co-author Robert F. Adler, senior scientist at Goddard's Laboratory for Atmospheres. Adler and Gu are now working on a detailed study of the relationship between surface temperatures and rainfall patterns to further investigate the possible link. Obtaining a global view of our planet's rainfall patterns is a challenging work-in-progress. Only since the satellite era have regular estimates of rainfall over oceans been available to supplement the long-term but land-limited record from rain gauges.

Just recently have the many land- and space-based data been merged into a single global record endorsed by the international scientific community: the Global Precipitation Climatology Project, sponsored by the World Climate Research Program. Adler's research group at NASA produces the project's monthly rainfall updates, which are available to scientists worldwide.

Using this global record, Gu, Adler and their colleagues identified a small upward trend in overall tropical rainfall since 1979, but their confidence was not high that this was an actual long-term trend rather than natural year-to-year variability. So they took another look at the record and removed the effects of the two major natural phenomena that change rainfall: the El Niño--Southern Oscillation and large volcanic eruptions.

El Niño is a cyclical warming of the ocean waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific that generally occurs every three to seven years and alters weather patterns worldwide. Volcanoes that loft debris into the upper troposphere and stratosphere create globe-circling bands of aerosol particles that slow the formation of precipitation by increasing the number of small cloud drops and temporarily shielding the planet from sunlight, which lowers surface temperatures and evaporation that fuels rainfall. Two such eruptions -- El Chicon in Mexico and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines -- occurred during the 27-year period.

The scientists found that during El Niño years, total tropical rainfall did not change significantly but more rain fell over oceans than usual. The two major volcanoes both reduced overall tropical rainfall by about 5 percent during the two years following each eruption. With these effects removed from the rainfall record, the long-term trend appears more clearly in both the rainfall data over land and over the ocean.

According to Adler, evidence for the rainfall trend is holding as more data come in. The latest numbers for 2006 show another record-high year for tropical rainfall, tying 2005 as the rainiest year during the period.

"The next step toward firmly establishing this initial indication of a long-term tropical rainfall trend is to continue to lengthen and improve our data record," says Adler, who is project scientist of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The three primary instruments on TRMM are currently providing the most detailed view of rainfall ever provided from space. Adler's group has been incorporating TRMM rainfall data since 1997 into the global rainfall record.

NASA plans to extend TRMM's success of monitoring rainfall over the tropics to the entire globe with the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, scheduled for launch in 2013. This international project will provide measurements of both rain and snow around the world with instruments on a constellation of spacecraft flying in different orbits.

The study appears in the Aug. 1, 2007, issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.


Source:

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (2007, August 29). Long-term Increase In Rainfall Seen In Tropics. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 9, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/08/070827174306.htm

Meralco August 2012 Rate Hike (Again)

Just after the down pour that equals Ondoy's wrath... another power rate hike was announced by Meralco.

As if the rains and global warming are poles apart and not related to each other, increase in power charges mainly by power plants that uses fossil fuels which are the major cause of global warming and hence record breaking moisture content in the atmosphere, a second wallow up comes in in the form of power rate increase was announced August 07 2012. The news was drowned by news of quite literal drowning news all over the Metropolis and it's peripheral provinces.

If one cannot relate global warming and rains with fossil fuel based power generation then we deserve the rains, the floods... business as usual... bring on the rains and the power hikes.

EastGreenfields

Meralco hikes generation charge

MANILA ELECTRIC CO. (Meralco) clients can expect higher bills this month as the distribution utility yesterday announced a 28-centavo generation charge increase.


The adjustment to P6.7397 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) from July’s P6.4549 is due to "the shutdown of the Malampaya pipeline for eight days in July" that affected the Ilijan, Sta. Rita, and San Lorenzo power plants, the firm said. 

 Consumers who use an average of 100 kWh per month will see their electricity bills go up by P28, the firm said. Those who consume 200 kWh per month will see a P56 increase, while customers using 300 kWh need to pay P84 more. 

 The Malampaya Deep Water Gas-to-Power project, operated by Shell Philippines Exploration B.V., supplies gas to Meralco’s independent power producers (IPPs).

 During last month’s maintenance shutdown, the three power plants ran on more expensive liquid condensate.

 Sta. Rita and San Lorenzo operated at their normal capacities of 1,000 megawatts (MW) and 510 MW, respectively, while Ilijan operated one block at a maximum of 450 MW from its overall capacity of 1,200 MW.

 "Because of Ilijan’s limited operations, a larger share of the power requirements in the Meralco area had to be obtained from Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM)," the firm said.

 WESM charges, at P14.70 per kWh, remained Meralco’s most expensive source of power.

 The utility said it sourced 45.6% of its power requirements from IPPS, 41.7% from National Power Corp. and 12.6% from the WESM.

 The firm earlier warned the August billing month could be more expensive for consumers given the scheduled Malampaya shutdown, which started on July 13.

 Meralco said the generation charge could drop next month as Malampaya is back online and barring generation disruptions from other large power plants. -- 

D. O. Rivera
Business World On-line service

Rain rain go away...

Global warming causes more water to evaporate into the air... thus the air holds more water.

Heavy precipitation results in above average down pour... it's no wonder that rains these days are already record breaking.

10 year rain cycle (maximum peak) is now less than 10 years... meaning it's more frequent.

Global warming... as we all know is a result of human activity... such as burning of fossil fuels for power generation.

To mitigate our global warming gas emission, RENEWABLE ENERGY type of power generation must be encourage... for small scale power generation... it is highly recommended to have small scale roof top installed solar power generation system.

Even during rainy days, there is still "juice" coming out of solar panels... it's not much... but it's not totally out... especially if the panels have their efficiency above 14.5 percent per 1000 watts/m2-day.

Ours (Solen Project) panels has a published efficiency of 14%. That's already high per industry standard... so what's yours?

Email us, inquiry@eastgreenfields.com, we can help you decrease your carbon foot print.

EastGreenfields

Secured electricity 'till 2019 confirms also secured green house gasses emission for Manila

It would be interesting to watch out until 2019 if the news holds true.


As per this news article, it proves that Metro Manila energy requirement is served solely by fossil based generated electricity. It means that for each of us living in Metro Manila and other areas under Meralco franchise must be aware of the carbon foot print each time we uses electricity.


33 kW-hr is equal to 1 tree that must be planted to offset carbon dioxide emission and other green house gasses associated with fossil based electric generation.


EastGreenfields




Meralco secures 90% of power supply for customers up to 2019
By Neil Jerome C. Morales (The Philippine Star) Updated August 03, 2012 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s largest power distributor, has secured 90 percent of its electricity needs for its customers over the next seven years.

The roughly 2,900 megawatts (MW) in capacity will be cheaper than existing power deals and guarantee customers of reliable supply, company executives said.

“Meralco has signed new highly cost-effective, long-term power supply agreements with various generators for capacities up to 2,880 MW,” the company said.

“This is an integral part of the company’s strategy for helping contain power costs to consumers,” it added.

Specifically, power supply deals were finalized with Consunji-led SEM-Calaca Power Corp., Masinloc Power Partnerss Co. Ltd., Aboitiz-led Therma Luzon Inc., South Premiere Power Corp. and San Miguel Energy Corp.

Meralco will mostly source its electricity requirements from coal power plants, save for South Premiere’s natural gas and diesel plant.

Meralco president and CEO Oscar Reyes said the committed capacity accounts for 90 percent of Meralco’s needs.

The power contracts will give Meralco “some degree of stability until 2019,” Reyes said, adding that the new contracts are cheaper by roughly P1 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) compared with existing supply deals. 

The new power supply agreements, without accounting for fuel price escalation, will average at P4.67 per kwh in 2013, lower than the P5.48 per kWh under existing contracts.

However, Meralco said the cheaper electricity might be tempered by higher prices at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM).

“Our concern is the balance that we have not contracted...that is largely driven by WESM,” Reyes said.

Demand from customers has been increasing on the back of robust economic growth in the Meralco franchise area.

Consolidated customer accounts rose 3.7 percent to a record 5.11 million as of end-June as the company added 88,391 new customers from the start of the year.

In June, Meralco posted a new record high in sales at 2,942 gigawatt-hours (gwh), eclipsing the 2,776 gwh in June 2010 during the election season, Reyes said.

“What is foremost on our mind is the tightness in power supply,” said Meralco chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, adding that this could lead to higher prices in the WESM.

Meralco, which is indirectly controlled by Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd. and partly owned by San Miguel Corp., is looking to build its own power plant to ensure supply.

Meralco PowerGen Corp. is building a 600-MW coal-fired power plant in Subic, Zambales in partnership with Aboitiz Power Corp. and the local unit of Taiwan Cogeneration International Corp. The project is under the RP Energy Inc. consortium.

“The site preparation is almost complete,” said RP Energy president Aaron Domingo.

“We have finished the technical discussions [with the contractor] and we are now proceeding with the commercial discussions, which we expect to conclude by end of August,” Domingo said.

However, there were reports that the Supreme Court has issued a writ of Kalikasan against the coal plant.
“RP Energy has 10 days to file its verified response upon formal receipt of the order/writ and we will do so within the time frame allotted,” the company said in a statement.

“We respect the process and are mindful of the rights of those who filed the petition,” it added.
Meralco’s core net income, which strips out currency and derivatives-related items, surged 15 percent to P9.02 billion in the first half from P7.82 billion a year ago.

This prompted Meralco to upgrade its projected profits for the year to P15.5 billion from P15 billion announced early this year and the actual P14.9 billion recorded last year.