PE2 promotes energy efficiency in Siemens’ Data Center Summit 2023
MANDALUYONG CITY, 9 November 2023 – Philippine Energy Efficiency Alliance president Alexander Ablaza and PE2 Trustee Ronaldo Torres of Meralco Energy (MSERV) joined the list of invited experts as resource speakers in Siemens’ Data Center Summit held earlier today in the EDSA Shangri-la Manila.
The Siemens Data Center Summit brought together a powerhouse group of government agencies, end-users, EPCs, and technology experts to explore the opportunities and challenges that the data center industry faces.
According to Jose Marie Enrico Buergo, Siemens Philippines CEO, the industry needs to address four key drivers: resiliency, sustainability, life-cycle performance, and government regulations.
Board of Investments (BOI) Executive Director Ma. Corazon Halili-Dichosa discussed the impact of digitalization on the overall Philippine Economy's potential and the government programs and incentives for data center investors and developers as well as the benefits that the data center industry can bring to the Philippine economy.
PE2 president and Climargy CEO Alexander Ablaza explained that the IEA’s Net-Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) Scenario will need global energy demand in 2050 to be around 8% lower than today but will need to serve an economy more than twice as big and a population with 2 billion more people. Energy efficiency (EE) needs a major paradigm shift to mobilize a significant amount of EE investments, typically double that required for RE. In the Philippines, PE2 estimates that 182 Mtoe in final energy consumption will need to be shaved off through 2040. Such market transformation will be catalyzed by the enforcement of Republic Act No. 11285, more popularly known as the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act. Not only are Designated Establishments adopting new obligations under the law, but up to PHP 8 trillion off-balance sheet EE capital flows through 2040 are now enabled through the ESCO business model. Data centers can progressively improve their energy efficiency through energy performance contracts with ESCOs and Super-ESCOs.
PE2 Trustee and MSERV CEO Ronaldo Torres presented on how data centers in the Philippines are ready to be fully dependent on renewable energy and shared the best practices and strategies that can be considered to reduce the carbon footprint and save costs.
Frederico Luis P. Trinidad, Director, Infostructure Management Bureau, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), laid out the government’s digitalization programs and its specific objective to develop the data center industry.
Gary Ignacio, Chief Data Center Officer of ePLDT spoke on the trailblazing experiences of ePLDT in building the first data center in the country as well as what the company's journey has been since then.
Carlo Malana, CEO of ST Telemedia Global Data Centres Philippines analyzed the potential of the Philippines to become a data center hub in Asia and how important it is to build a data center ecosystem that can make the country competitive against its neighboring countries.
Steven Davis, Chairman of Data Center Association of the Philippines, highlighted the barriers and opportunities to nurse the data center industry to full market maturity.
Siemens Account Manager Siew Ching Tang highlighted the value of safety for data centers while Siemens’ Derek del Nevo presented the model of digital twinning.
Froilan Savet, Head of Meralco Networks, talked about the utility’s efforts in sustainability and support for growing power demand of data center companies.
Lastly, Siemens underscored the key role collaboration of the public sector, led by the DICT and BOI, with private sector leaders of the data center industry, to grow this booming economic activity through a sustainable and energy efficient pathway.
