advantages of going green Archives - Solar Panels Philippines

REGINA ROME
Solar Digital Squad
Manila, Philippines
October 13, 2018

Who is the Sea Princess?

Everybody who’s anybody knows exactly who Tessa Prieto-Valdes is. The celebrity, socialite, columnist, fashion designer, trendsetter, athlete, and philanthropist. That legendary icon with the colorful hats and lashes, with a gregarious and flamboyant signature in the world of fashion. On October 9, 2018, the Sea Princess extraordinaire graced the Solaric Headquarters, where we usually teach guests how to install a solar panel at their homes, with her presence.

A green cause

The Philippines is going strong about going green. Even the biggest real estate developers and our government leaders are concerned about environmental consciousness. Sustainable design and structure rule the game and the word is out that to ensure a bright future, we all have to find our way to live a green lifestyle. All this brings us to one common path towards a greener future. That is precisely one of the advocacies of the Sea Princess.

The sun is green

Going solar is about going green. Learning how to install a solar panel at home is one of the more fundamental ways that anyone can do to shift to a greener lifestyle. Through an array of photovoltaic cells, sunlight is converted to electricity. This has become the most affordable and cost-efficient green technology of this era.

Tell me the benefits

As the camera men maneuvered their way around the Solaric Headquarters in Chino Roces Extension, Makati, Tessa sat down with Solaric President Mike De Guzman, and tackled the highlights and benefits of solar power.

“Energy from the sun is unlimited, and that’s a fact for another 5 billion years,” said Mike, as he talked about providing clean energy with no greenhouse gas emissions. He went on to discuss the more important issues to address when it comes to investing in a solar power system. “Using solar energy is absolutely green and rewarding,” he added. “With solar, you save money. You save the environment. You are cost-efficient. You avoid increasing power costs. You increase your property value. You assume a dual role by being a consumer and a producer of power.”

Tessa takes the green vision to heart

Jade De Guzman, Vice President of Solaric, went on to share her passion and advocacy with Tessa for healthy, clean air, and the eco-friendly advantages of turning on the sun. “Solaric is now zoning in on renewable energy technology and products more intensively. We are expanding our operations and establishing a stronger foothold in the country’s fast-growing solar energy market.”

“I imagine a country with numerous sprawling solar power plants, stretching across hectares of land throughout the archipelago. These solar plants have the capability of storing electricity generated during the day, which are then sold to consumers at night.” As the costs for solar power equipment and materials decrease, visions and realities are finally intersecting.

“Energy from solar is now cheaper than energy from a new gas burning power plant,” emphasized Mike, as he went on to show the #ZeroBill phenomena that Solaric launched three years ago.

The Solaric green light

“Solaric’s vision is very straightforward. In an ideal world, we want to convert all buildings to green buildings. We want all newly constructed homes to install solar. In ten years, I envision all houses in exclusive subdivisions to be on solar. By year 2030, majority of the nation’s energy should be derived from renewable energy sources. Only then can we have a cleaner, greener, and more sustainable Philippines,” said Mike.

With advocates like Tessa Prieto-Valdes and the Founders of Solaric who are clamoring for a green Philippines, we can only hope that this reality is exactly what is in store for us.

Regina Rome is a solar analyst with the Solar Digital Squad Research.

Does it make sense to Go Solar these days?

Absolutely! We live in a very sunny and tropical country, perhaps one of the most beautiful of them all, Sunny Philippines. Unfortunately, we are also one of the nations most affected in climate change, and end up paying for one of the highest power rates in Asia.

After powering relief centers and schools in Tacloban right after Yolanda, we take climate change very seriously and our goal is to make our country more environmentally responsible than ever.

Powering a nation needs many sources of energy, given that Nuclear power may be a bit too risky for a geologically active country with multitudes of volcanoes and earthquake faults. With the rest of the world closing down coal plants because of pollution issues, we have to find other sources of power, and the answer already falling on our roofs.

The solar panel equivalent of Bataan Nuclear Plant is like giving every Pinoy a solar panel priced in the Philippines less than a size of a cartolina.

Is this a pipe dream? Perhaps no more as Germany and Japan gave solid subsidies so that their citizenry can install and are rewarded, when they put their own solar rooftops in terms of tax breaks and favorable Net metering prices. They, in turn, shut down dozens of nuclear plants due to increased supply of renewables.

As a home owner, the only practical energy resource is to harness sun energy that falls on our roof and convert it to electrical energy using our solar panel system builds.

Our main strategy is to put enough solar to cover daytime hour consumption as that is the easiest to power without using batteries or selling excess power back to the utility at a discount. However, there are some customers who have ZEROED their entire electric bills by using LOTS of solar panels on the roof and essentially became a mini solar farm in their neighborhood.

Solar worked for countries like Japan, Germany, and US—they are not exactly sunny countries with lots of solar energy. But in the Philippines, it works like magic; even without a single centavo in Government subsidies or tax relief support.

Solar rooftop makes sense because of the abundant sunshine that falls to our roof and low labor rates to install solar panels priced in the Philippines. Just using less coal power plant power sourced makes financial sense with a bankable solid return. Returns of less than 5 years are common to solar builds using grid tie technology and capitalizing on existing legal framework of net metering to sell back excess solar power to the grid in order to offset night time consumption. For a product with a service life of at least 25 years, this is outstanding.

Every day, we energize a rooftop project either directly from our own hands or from one of the more than a thousand installer and DIY builders we have trained in the past three years. A single solar panel has the carbon offset of planting 160 trees, and we planted (installed) thousands and thousands of solar panels. A few hundred houses and industrial plants later, we probably killed the feasibility study of another coal plant and gave notice that going green for both the wallet and the environment makes sense and a financially sustainable endeavour.

DIY packages at less than the cost of a well-endowed smartphone makes going green a no nonsense solution on practicality and social responsibility. Air condition units run capable builds can range from P100k to P140k.

So, if you hate paying more than you should for power, want guilt-free air con, or simply do NOT want to pay for power anymore, call Solaric at 5040092. You could also visit this page for more info.

Tag: advantages of going green

THE SEA PRINCESS TALKS TO SOLARIC ABOUT GOING GREEN