Transitioning to Renewable Energy: Stakeholders play vital role in decarbonizing our planet

By Peter Paul Duran March 28, 2022, 7:20 pm
from manilastandard.net

“Abundant geothermal resource in PH key in providing 24/7 clean, 100% renewable energy”

We’ve been taught since primary school that with human ingenuity, great things can be accomplished. One such marvel of innovation is the ability to harness energy from natural resources. But majority of the resources humans use to power everyday life have a finite supply.

Enter renewable energy (RE), where technology has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years to enable stakeholders to harness power from solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro sources without the worry of ever running out.

As per the US Energy Information Administration, there are five different forms of RE, namely Biomass, Hydropower, Geothermal, Wind, and Solar.

Let’s zoom in on geothermal for a quick second and what makes it different compared to other RE technologies.

Geothermal energy has the ability to provide reliable, stable baseload power, according to the Energy Development Corporation, the world’s largest vertically integrated geothermal producer and the country’s leading 100% renewable energy company.

While energy harnessed from Solar, Wind and Hydro resources all help in decarbonizing the grid, there is intermittency and seasonality of supply. Efficiency is key in any RE technology and being a reliable 24/7 source of clean and renewable energy has little to no drawbacks compared to solar power, which is reliant on the assurance of a sunny day or wind/hydro where seasonal changes may affect energy production.

And when it comes to all matters geothermal, there’s no entity better at it than EDC, which has been championing clean energy for close to half a century.

“EDC has been utilizing the Philippines’ vast geothermal resources for 45 years now,” said EDC Corporate Relations and Communications Head Allan V. Barcena.”

“Geothermal is superior to non-RE power sources since it provides a reliable 24/7 supply of clean, renewable energy with low carbon emissions—Geo 24/7 to us, in EDC. The company’s initiatives in providing business consumers with clean and sustainable energy from its roster of 100 percent clean and renewable energy (RE) facilities compliments the Philippines’ movement toward a decarbonized and regenerative future,” he added.

EDC recognizes the critical nature of humanity’s predicament on a globe that continues to collect more heat-trapping carbon dioxide. In this condition, progressive efforts to repair the world’s resources are no longer sufficient to reverse the alarming trend, not if more hands are on deck.

EDC’s goal is to work with like-minded businesses, organizations, and individuals that are motivated not only to bring economic gains and development but also to help keep the environment sustainable by assisting them in making the transition to renewable energy (RE).

This echoes the thrust of the whole company which EDC Chairman Federico Lopez drumbeats in all things they do and is embodied in their new mission “to forge collaborative pathways for a decarbonized and regenerative future.”

“There is a need for businesses to elevate everything we touch—our customers; co-creators such as employees, suppliers, and contractors; the environment; communities, and, investors,” Lopez explained

He added that the urgency of the problem requires “all of us to go beyond incremental sustainability and transform into regenerative forces that align our profit engines with the need for a better world and a safer planet.”

Lopez emphasized that the implications of neglecting the problem might be catastrophic; increasing global temperatures could unleash problems considerably worse than the current Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on humans. Massive glaciers at the North Pole and in Antarctica, for example, will irrevocably melt, transforming low-lying cities like Metro Manila into “Waterworlds.” As the waters warm, typhoons considerably greater and deadlier than “Yolanda” will become more frequent.

Part of its commitment to be a part of the solution to climate change is its efforts to plant, cultivate and keep lush forests in its operating areas. This is how EDC sustains its Geo 24/7 promise. In 2008, EDC, led by Chairman Emeritus Oscar M. Lopez, stepped up its reforestation efforts by launching the BINHI greening legacy program, which aims to close forest gaps and restore abundance to 96 vulnerable Philippine native tree species.

BINHI has gone beyond recovering forests at EDC’s geothermal sites with the support of more than 191 partners and 88 farmers’ associations across the country. Since 2009, the BINHI initiative has reforested about 10,000 hectares in geothermal areas, with over 6.4 million BINHI seedlings planted in restoration operations with 88 associated forest communities. Consequently, EDC has become a carbon negative company as a result of its 100% renewable energy portfolio and its vast reforestation efforts through the BINHI program, which means that the limited CO2 emitted by its operations was offset by all the CO2 absorbed by reforested watersheds.

This makes EDC create shared value among its power customers, especially among the business sector, by helping them decarbonize their own operations.

The power market has been rapidly changing as a result of the Department of Energy’s efforts to green the electricity grid through programs such as the Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA), and now, the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP), as well as its announced moratorium on new coal-fired power generation.

GEOP gives consumers with at least 100KW of monthly average peak demand for the past 12 months to pick their own RE source and purchase it directly from licensed GEOP providers. This enables contestable consumers to reduce their business or institution’s carbon footprint while also lowering their power costs.

Shifting to GEOP through EDC’s Geo 24/7 will allow consumers to become one of the company’s regenerative partners who can benefit from value-added services such as involvement in its BINHI and other CSR initiatives, as well as clean, efficient, cost-competitive renewable energy.

According to EDC, businesses can now take a stand for the environment by freely selecting where to buy electricity, thus reducing their carbon footprint as a contribution to combating climate change.

But EDC is not stopping there.

It shares that in due time, the company is pursuing a program to create new hydro, solar, and wind power plants in the nation, as well as beef up its already established geothermal facilities both here and abroad,

EDC says they will continue to collaborate with organizations to share their goal and mission to fight climate change by transitioning to renewable energy.

Find out more about shifting to a decarbonized business by getting power from EDC’s Geo 24/7 through https://www.energy.com.ph/shift-to-renewable-energy.