From commute to kitchen: Where Filipinos can save energy during oil price spikes

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A biker and her pet dog ride along EDSA-Guadalupe in Makati City on April 21, 2023.

STAR / Jesse Bustos

MANILA, Philippines — The yearlong national energy emergency declared Tuesday is not only about supply levels, but also about how companies, households and individuals use energy, with conservation under closer focus.

In Executive Order 110, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the Department of Energy (DOE) has determined that the ongoing fuel crisis poses a danger to the country’s power supplies.

Practices to conserve energy isn't new to many Filipinos, especially for those who annually commemorate Earth Hour every last Saturday of March and similar energy-saving efforts.

But with a present crisis affecting not just the country's oil supply but potentially electricity distribution, the initiative to observe such efforts becomes more necessary.

What can households, families do?

The International Energy Agency recently released a number of recommendations to reduce energy demand, both in a household and work context.

Transport-related recommended actions include:

Encouraging public transport
Increasing car sharing, or carpool
Avoiding air travel when possible

Cars and bikes. Those that find it necessary to use a car can apply energy-saving habits to their driving such as steady speeds and less rapid acceleration or sudden braking, also turning off vehicles when waiting rather than leaving engines on idle.

A pandemic practice that can and should be brought back amid the energy crisis is to walk or bike to work if the distance is manageable enough.

Not only does walking or biking cut energy emissions and reduce car congestion, it saves money and offers a number of health benefits.

Gas matters. Suggestions that either the Department of Energy or the consolidated government effort called UPLIFT may consider are:

Limit car access to roads in large cities through a number-plate alternating scheme
Reduce highway speed limits by at least 10k kilomters per hour (kph), and
Help industrial facilities switch between different petrochemical feedstocks to free up liquid petroleum gas (LPG)

Diverting the need for LPG in transport means preserving it for more essential needs like cooking, though more saving can be done there by the use of electric stoves and the like.

Back to work-from-home. Employees may opt to work from home instead whenever possible or as some companies and governments have now decided to do, reduce the work week to four days.

From a electricity-saving view, old lightbulbs should be replaced with new LED bulbs as these are more efficient than incandescent and halogen lights.

One common practice is to always turn lights off when leaving a room, and only keep on lights as needed. For those with large windows, make use of natural light whenever possible during the day then save the use of lights later in the evening.

The same can be said for charging electronic devices by unplugging them as soon as they are at 100% battery. This as devices left on standby can still use up to 50% of the energy used when in operation.

For those with appliances with self-timer features, consider using such for these devices to automatically turn off at a certain time or — in the case of air conditioning units — automate power use depending on crowds in a room. — with reports from Jean Mangaluz

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