Highlights: Webinar on Farewell to Fluorescents
The Fifth Conference of Parties (COP5) of the Minamata Convention on Mercury agreed to phase out all forms of mercury-containing fluorescent lighting technology. This global decision includes the phase-out of linear fluorescent lamps (LFLs), which stand as the largest source of mercury pollution in the lighting sector. Catch the highlights of our webinar titled #MakeMercuryHistory in the Lighting Sector as experts and stakeholders discuss how to advance sustainable and mercury-free lighting technologies.
Asian Development Bank should close its doors to all dirty energy
Climate groups and communities advocating against coal projects in the Asia-Pacific region have welcomed the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) recent draft energy policy that aims to stop financing coal power and mining, and extraction activities for oil and natural gas. However, if not monitored closely, ADB could also be jeopardizing its own efforts by creating loopholes in its new policy that might still allow financing for fossil gas and other dirty energy facilities.
Bi-directional meters enable net metering … not!
Uni-directional electric meters are like electrified barbed wires that confine villagers inside a hamlet. Utility customers are locked in, unable to take advantage of the cheap solar electricity that one gets from a simple grid-tied configuration. Anyone who tries climbing over the wires gets electrocuted. Instead of enjoying solar savings, they are punished severely and charged for trying to share their surplus with neighbors.
Micro vs mainframe
The micro/mainframe terminology is derived from the early debate in the computing industry between IBM Corp. and Intel Corp. IBM was the pioneer and leader in the computer industry of the 1960s, and faced only a few small competitors. The industry players were often described as “Snow White and the seven dwarfs”.
Exempt small-scale renewables from the bureaucratic mazes of electric utilities, city halls and the Energy Regulatory Commission
Today, basically the same set of rules apply to small-scale renewable projects below 100 kW as well as to 100 MW projects. This is a huge disincentive for small-scale RE. The experience of the Romblon Electric Cooperative (Romelco) is a case in point. Their 20-kW hybrid facility in Cobrador Island, which involves a mixture of solar power, battery storage and diesel generator back-up, also had to go through essentially the same bureaucratic maze at the Department of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Commission as 100 MW solar farm projects.
Why microrenewables?
By microrenewables, we mean small-scale renewables, whose outputs are at kilowatt instead of megawatt levels. These include solar PV systems on home and building rooftops, microhydro facilities, small wind turbines, small biogas digesters, and other micro-systems. As a rough guide, we can use the government limit of 100 kilowatts and below.
The CREST microhydro agenda
The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) is hard at work on its microhydro agenda. It is partnering with Galing Pook awardee, the LGU of San Luis, Aurora, and other local governments on trials to bring down the capital expenses for microhydro installations below the capex of mini- and mega-hydroelectric projects.
It is expensive to have no electricity
Those who do not have access to electricity use candles or kerosene lamps at night. We will compare the cost of these lighting technologies to the cost of electric lighting.
Why LED lighting makes sense
Shifting to energy-efficient LED lighting is a good example of an energy efficiency measure and makes eminent sense, as the following calculations will show.
Renewables should shift from a mainframe to a micro paradigm
To reduce climate change risk in the next ten years, we need more than one technology. We need technology approaches and business models that can make carbon-free or carbon-neutral renewable energy as accessible and abundant as information has become today.