THE CENTER for Empowerment, Innovation, and Training on Renewable Energy (Centre) urged homeowners to invest in solar panels to self-generate energy and cut monthly electricity costs.
Centre president Charlie Ayco stressed that the energy industry changes along with technology, and the need to capacitate local government units on how to generate their own electricity with independence from big companies is crucial.
Ayco recalled that power generation before was site-specific, however with the advent of technology, everyone can have “miniature power plants on roofs.”
“The cheapest electricity is that electricity, which is produced in the place where it is going to be consumed,” Ayco said during the press conference of the 1st Mindanao Clean Energy gab, Nov. 20.
The chief said self-generation takes away logistics costs unlike when homes are dependent on electricity producers.
“When you produce it somewhere else, the generation, the transmission, it has to pass through the NGCP, then goes to the electric cooperative. If it costs P3 there, when it reaches you it becomes P10,” Ayco said.
Ayco said focusing on huge power plants is deemed unnecessary, recognizing that to ensure individual homes will have available and affordable electricity, it is a must to find a way how they can self-generate.
For consumers to become producers of his own electricity, he said “ We have to educate people to think differently because the traditional way of thinking has been embedded in us for so many years that we have to change it as perspective changes because of technology”.
However, purchasing solar panels can be costly. He associated it with buying a motorcycle, where the recovery for investment or payback period is a maximum of 5 1 ⁄ 2 years but one can use it in the long run.
For instance, a homeowner pays P10 per KWH now but can reduce it to P5-6 and if he installs solar panels. By having their own generated electricity, one can save up to 40%.
“Technology is already there. What we need to provide the people is where they can lend money from. If he can lend P200,000 that he can afford to pay, believe me, all the rooftop installation will increase by most homes,” he said.
The chief added it would not only cut costs but to have a sense of self-sufficiency and security of electricity in every household.
Centre is one of the speakers in the 1st Mindanao Clean Energy forum held on Nov.20-21 at the Acacia Hotel Davao.
