Find out how much you can save on electricity at the Meralco Power Lab

MANILA, Philippines - If you could know exactly how much money you could save on your electricity bill if, for example, you used an inverter type instead of a conventional air-conditioner or refrigerator, wouldn’t you want to have access to this type of information? 

Consider these costs per kilowatt hour: for a conventional refrigerator, P 4.71 versus P2.28 for an inverter refrigerator; P7.39 for a conventional coil-type stove versus P3.50 for an induction stove.

This we learned during the recent opening of the Meralco Power Lab located inside the Meralco compound in Ortigas, Pasig City.

The two-level multi-purpose facility is intended to serve as a venue where Meralco customers can “discover how much electricity typical home appliances and gadgets consume, and to realize how this impacts on their household expenses,” explained Alfredo S. Panlilio, Meralco SVP and head of Customer Retail Services and Corporate Communications. “Hopefully, this will encourage them to become more conscious about electricity use and be more energy-efficient consumers.”

With a looming power shortfall anticipated during the coming summer months, energy conservation is encouraged to reduce power demand. From power supply, the focus now is on the demand side, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Jericho Petilla remarked. He cites the experience in Korea, where a power crisis just a year and a half ago was addressed, not by building new plants but by simply cutting down on consumption. He suggested simple measures such as keeping air-conditioners at 25 degrees Celsius, or dressing down instead of wearing suits during the summer months.

“This is an important step, an innovative step,” Meralco chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan intimated during the Power Lab opening. He believes in the intelligent Filipino consumer, he said.

Manny V. Pangilinan opens the Meralco Power Lab in Ortigas Center: “This is an important step, an innovative step.” STAR/Boy Santos

By raising consumer awareness, they’d “help improve their quality of life,” Meralco president and CEO Oscar Reyes shared. “Our interest is in helping consumers spend smartly on electricity through energy conservation by using energy-efficient appliances, and availing of new energy-efficient technology.”

The Meralco Power Lab houses an equipment-testing laboratory, a demo area, and an Intelligent Living space.  The equipment-testing laboratory can be used to verify the energy consumption of air-conditioners, refrigerators and freezers, washers and dryers, home entertainment systems, kitchen and other household appliances. The testing area can be reconfigured to accommodate different appliances, equipment and devices.

“We made use of sliding doors to create modular spaces where energy consumption of appliances can be tested,” Jason Buensalido of Buensalido + Architects, the firm that designed both the exterior and interior of the Meralco Power Lab, explained. “We also included built-in provisions for testing appliances with different capacities and technologies.”

The Demo Area features appliance stations where interactive energy display monitors enable visitors to compare the energy consumption of common electrical equipment that use different technologies such as air-conditioners and refrigerators that use conventional and inverter technologies, TVs that use CRT, LCD and LED technologies, as well as kitchen, lighting and video player stations.

The Intelligent Living space demonstrates innovative and energy-efficient technologies using a future residential setup where you can monitor and control lighting, security and home appliances through tablets and other handheld devices. Sometime in the near future, it will be possible to manage your household by remote control. If you forgot to close the lights on your way out of the house, for example, you will not have to go all the way back but simply press a button on your remote control device. You can change settings. There is a device that you can plug into your appliance that will tell you how much energy it is consuming on a daily basis.

You might already have noticed the Meralco orange tags on certain appliances on sale in stores. The units are Meralco Power Lab-tested. The orange tag shows the appliance’s average energy consumption per hour and its corresponding average cost.

“It shows the cost per day in peso terms,” Power Lab manager Alfred Iporac explains. “The Meralco orange tag supplements the Energy Guide yellow labels of the DOE.”

“It’s all about empowering the consumer,” says Oscar Reyes. “It is our obligation to help the consumer in the wise use of electricity. A better-enabled consumer will redound to the benefit not only of business but eventually of the community and the country.”

This simply means, “More power to the consumer!”