CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines – Addressing the recently concluded Environment Congress held in this city’s Radisson Blu Hotel recently, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for Nature-Philippines president Jose Lorenzo Tan stressed if power consumption is properly managed, the demand for power can be reduced, thus eliminating the need for putting up more coal-powered power plants in the country.

Of late, various environmentalist groups have been criticizing government for lack of implementation of its Renewable Energy (RE) program even after the launching of the National Renewable Energy Program which is supposed to address the spiraling cost and insufficiencies in the supply of electricity, especially in rural areas.

Factors cited by Tan which he said hinders the effective implementation of the RE law includes unsettled issues on said law’s implementing rules and regulation and the lack of feed-in-tariffs which is crucial in attracting investors in government’s RE program.

Tan said the use of coal is “not a good idea because it is dirty and there is no such thing as clean coal.”

However, he admitted that government officials can not be blamed if they support coal-powered plant investments in the country since they do not have a choice on what type of energy source they could support.

“Coal-power plant is a cut-and-paste technology while potential renewable energy investors still need to study the resource more,” he pointed out.

Tan also said that the playing field for power is not fair because it is skewed for coal.

Meanwhile, the WWF Philippines official said if people can manage their consumption of power by simply turning off unnecessary appliances and use only energy-efficient gadgets and equipment, then power consumption could substantially be reduced.

“If there is lesser power consumption then it will result into lower output from power plants thus, new power plants will no longer be needed,” he said.