10 October 2019, Singapore – As part of their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, consultancy PwC Singapore has offset 100% of their air travel emissions and sourced 100% renewables for their electricity consumption. These were published in PwC Singapore’s Sustainability Report, launched today. The report looks at the firm’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy, policies and performance for the firm’s financial year (FY) ending 2019.
With the introduction of the carbon emissions offsets, the net carbon emissions of the firm dropped 74% from 5,376 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) in FY 2018 to 1,406 tCO2e in FY 2019. Carbon emissions per employee fell in tandem from 1.83 tCO2e in FY 2018 to 0.44 tCO2e in FY 2019. In moving the PwC Singapore office to Marina One, the firm saw a 30% reduction in electricity consumption and have moved towards 100% renewable energy for their remaining energy consumption. This is in line with their goal to improve efficiency and sustainability of energy.
On top of the reduction in the carbon footprint, the firm also contributed back to the community through volunteering and donations. Part of PwC Singapore’s efforts to give back to the community in the last FY includes the launch of PwC Singapore Foundation in January 2019 which aims to increase their reach and social impact.
Charlotte Hsu, Corporate Responsibility Leader at PwC Singapore said:
“As a firm, we believe in fulfilling our corporate responsibilities and in giving back to the society by helping the community and environment at large. We are committed to making a positive, lasting impact in our communities by sharing our time, knowledge and resources.”
Ends.
Notes to editors
About the Sustainability Report
PwC Singapore’s annual sustainability report presents the key aspects of our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy, policies and performance. This report covers the non-financial performance and disclosures of our 2019 financial year (FY19), from July 2018 to June 2019, and it is in accordance with the GRI Standards. All data, statistics and information presented in this report are in relation to the Singapore firm’s operations, unless otherwise stated.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct. 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Sungrow, the global leading inverter solution supplier for renewables, unveiled the latest industry-leading PV and energy storage product lineup at the tenth-annual International Greentech & Eco Products Exhibition & Conference Malaysia (IGEM), illustrating the Company’s efforts in decarbonizing the local economy and supporting the country’s target of 20% renewable energy in its generation mix by 2025. At the show, Yeo Bee Yin, Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Climate Chang and Environment, gave a visit to Sungrow booth and presented the Company the “Best Display Booth Award”.
Sungrow Booth at IGEM 2019
SG250HX: The World’s Most Powerful 1500 Vdc String Inverter
The utility-scale sector is poised for huge growth in the coming years as the third round of the nation’s Large Scale Solar (LSS) procurement program has attracted 112 bids totaling over 6.73 GW of generation capacity. As a result, Sungrow is rolling out new product portfolio to meet the high demand.
The SG250HX, a highly-anticipated product, drew thousands of attendees to the booth. As the world’s most powerful 1500 Vdc string inverter, SG250HX characterizes the optimal protection capacity of IP66 and 12 MPPTs, maximizes yields while coupling with bifacial module and tracking system.
Optimized for large-scale utility flat ground plants, the 1500 Vdc 6.8 MW turnkey solution features the integration of the central inverter SG3400HV and the MV station. The solution with a high DC/AC ratio of 1.5 and typical block design can minimize the LCOE.
SG110CX, SG50CX: Cutting-edge New Solutions for C&I PV Plants
The Company introduced a wide portfolio for commercial and industrial (C&I) PV installations including SG110CX and SG50CX. These multi-MPPT solutions enable flexible vertical and horizontal installation and can endure difficult conditions. With built-in PID recovery function, the solutions maintain unprecedented yields for solar plants. These features notably make it significantly easier for customers to deploy solar energy under Malaysia’s Net Energy Metering (NEM) scheme.
Ideal Match to Residential Energy Storage Systems
Sungrow’s residential energy storage solutions are best paired with household solar plants. The residential hybrid inverter SH10RT on display is customized for an optimal performance with three-phase design, compact design and innovative friendly end-user interface. The residential system with a hybrid inverter and battery is a smart solution that guarantees not only maximum yields but also optimum charging and discharging capabilities.
No.1 Market Share in Malaysia
Given the high irradiation levels, Malaysia is the home to a plethora of solar farms. Malaysia is solar poised for growth despite record-low tariffs, according to analyst at Fitch Solution. Sungrow holds onto the No.1 market share position and its landmark projects consist of a 55 MW project in Negeri Sembilan and 52.5 MW solar project in Pahang.
“As one of the major dedicated players in this emerging solar hub, we are bringing forth a state-of-the-art products lineup together with 24/7 service tailored for local customers,” said Luis Xu, Regional Manager of Sungrow APAC Region. “As the most bankable inverter brand and the No.1 supplier in financed projects, we’ll join force with more partners in scaling up the applications of renewables in Malaysia and around the region at large,” he added.
About Sungrow
Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd (“Sungrow”) is the world’s most bankable inverter brand with over 87 GW installed worldwide as of June 2019. Founded in 1997 by University Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow is a leader in the research and development of solar inverters, with the largest dedicated R&D team in the industry and a broad product portfolio offering PV inverter solutions and energy storage systems for utility-scale, commercial, and residential applications, as well as internationally recognized floating PV plant solutions. With a strong 22-year track record in the PV space, Sungrow products power installations in over 60 countries, maintaining a worldwide market share of over 15%.
KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd is partnering with Cypark Resources Bhd to develop solid waste modular advanced recovery and treatment (SMART) waste-to-energy (WTE) projects in Malaysia.
Both firms have signed a memorandum of understanding to evaluate potential collaboration on waste to energy projects, including establishment of WTE plants.
Cypark has pioneered Malaysia’s first SMART WTE plant in Ladang Tanah Merah, Port Dickson in Negri Sembilan.
Petronas Chemicals, on the other hand, is keen to realise SMART WTE projects in Malaysia as part of its initiative to provide solutions for effective plastics waste management.
Petronas Chemicals managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Sazali Hamzah said the firm looks forward to the strategic collaboration as it is in line with its initiative towards New Plastic Economy in support of the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals.
“This MoU marks our second partnership in realising our aspiration to be a solutions partner in addressing plastics pollution in Malaysia.
“We are committed to support the country in developing a Circular Economy Roadmap through the ‘Malaysia Plastics Pact’ by the government,” he said in a statement.
Earlier in June, Petronas Chemicals entered into a partnership to jointly perform a feasibility study to establish a facility that converts plastic waste into crude naphtha for the production of recycled virgin-quality plastics.
Cypark executive chairman Tan Sri Razali Ismail said the firm is looking for a strategic partner in ensuring its long-term business sustainability.
“The MoU aims to establish our collaboration in WTE projects, particularly in setting up plants in Malaysia to process municipal waste for electricity generation,” he said.
The two firms would be able to leverage on each other’s knowledge, experience and capabilities while identifying and exploring commercial opportunities in relation to the provision of solid waste management, he added.
KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has launched its first solar solution in Malaysia, known as M+ by Petronas, a customisable and affordable solar panels for commercial and industrial use.
Petronas executive vice president and chief executive officer of gas and new energy business Adif Zulkifli said M+ marks its progress in supplying clean energy options and represents our strategic vision to venture into new energy space in addition to oil and gas.”
Ultimately, we want to become a leading global provider of clean, reliable as well as cost-effective energy solutions and contribute to the well-being of society and the environment,” he added.
Petronas’ foray into the renewable energy industry builds upon its recent acquisition of Amplus Energy Solutions Pte Ltd (Amplus), a leading distributed solar energy solutions provider and developer across India.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad launched this product at International Greentech & Eco Products Exhibitions & Conference Malaysia (IGEM 2019) here today.
Also present were Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Yeo Bee Yin and Petronas president and group chief executive officer Tan Sri Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin.
They witnessed Petronas exchanged Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Sdn Bhd for the installation of solar solution at the companies’ rooftops.
KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s wholly-owned unit TNB Energy Services Sdn Bhd (TNBES) and Malaysia Green Technology Corp (MGTC) has set aside RM1.5 million to put up 100 charging stations for electric vehicles (EV), at shopping malls and select 5-star hotels.
TNBES managing director Dr Ahmad Jaafar Abd Hamid said to date, 14 ChargEV stations had been installed while another 35 potential sites were waiting for approval to proceed by the premises’ owners.
“We’re engaging with major parking operators, mall owners and hotel chains to extend ChargEV station network in major cities in Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru,” he said.
TNBES and MGTC’s joint venture company Tenaga E Mobility Solutions Sdn Bhd is installing ChargEV stations and any businesses related to smart mobility.
The ChargEV charging stations are open to public on a subscription basis, where potential members pay an annual membership fee of RM240.
Based on a domestic tariff of RM0.57, a fully charged electric vehicle can go as far as 160km for every RM12.50 worth of charging.
Ahmad Jaafar was speaking with reporters after Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment & Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin launched TNBES and MGTC’s EV infrastructure expansion project in conjunction with the International Greentech & Eco Products Exhibitions & Conference Malaysia (IGEM 2019) here today.
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 — Malaysia should increase its solar panel export as the country produces good quality solar panels, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
He said Malaysia currently one of the biggest solar panel manufacturers and exporters that even supplies solar panels to the United States.
“Our solar panels are of very good quality. So we can increase the export of solar panels as we go along. This is the direction we have taken and we are committed to it,” he told reporters after launching the Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) first solar rooftop solution in the country known as M+ by PETRONAS.
The launch was held in conjunction with the International Greentech and Eco Products Exhibition and Conference Malaysia (IGEM), here, today.
Also present was Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin.
M+ by PETRONAS is a customisable and affordable solar solution designed for both commercial and industrial use.
The affordability of M+ by PETRONAS is anchored upon its dynamic customer-centric business model with zero capital expenditure required from customers, tailored to meet customers’ needs and enables savings.
Petronas provides end-to-end delivery of the solar rooftop solution and hassle-free maintenance to ensure that customers need only pay for the tariff charges of their energy usage and are not exposed to any form of technical and financial risks.
Meanwhile, during the press conference, Yeo said Petronas’ innovation would further increase the beneficiaries of the government’s solar leasing policy.
“We do not give subsidies but we give innovation in terms of our policy framework so that the private sectors like Petronas and TNB and other solar leasing companies can invest, get a private financing to invest in it and to get returns (through this policy),” she said.
Menlo Renewable Energy Corp. (MREN), a wholly owned subsidiary of MRC Allied Inc., has switched on a 550-kilowatt rooftop solar photovoltaic project for a rice mill in Northern Luzon.
MRC Allied said in a statement this was MREN’s pilot project for its Solar PV Portfolio, thus bringing the company closer to its goal of becoming a major renewable energy player in the Philippines.
The parent firm said this project would make renewable energy technology accessible to other industries such as the agricultural sector.
The installation would complement the peaking power needs of the unnamed rice mill and would help reduce power costs by about 30 percent.
Lower expenses for electricity would also translate to lower prices of milled rice.
“We have finally kicked off our [renewable energy] portfolio through this pilot project and we are working hard to produce more through our [renewable energy] subsidiary, MREN,” MRC Allied president Augusto Cosio said.
Cosio said the pilot project was realized in less than a year. He said he was looking forward to the inauguration of more projects in the future.
MRC Allied earlier said it was racking up in the next two years a portfolio of solar rooftop projects with a total of 12 megawatts in power generation capacity.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, MRC said it also broke ground for a 550-kW rooftop project at a rice mill in Nueva Ecija as well as two other rice mills, in addition to a similar project with a mall operator in Davao Oriental.
Aside from solar rooftops, MRC Allied planned to continue utility-scale projects such as the 50-MW solar project of Sulu Electric Power and Light Philippines Inc. where it had a 15-percent stake as well as its own 100-MW solar project in Pampanga and 60-MW solar project in Cebu. —RONNEL W. DOMINGO
THE Philippines continues to be confronted with energy supply challenges. But one that has to be dealt with immediately is the urgency to find and develop new energy sources to fill the void that will be left in the wake of the Malampaya gas field depletion.
If no viable alternatives to the gas field—supplying more than 40 percent of Luzon’s power requirement—are presented anytime soon, it is possible that rotational brownouts may hit Luzon again.
“Unless we find new indigenous natural gas deposits or develop the capacity to import and process natural gas, we stand to lose a tremendous amount of energy-generation capacity. This will compromise our energy supply stability in the coming decades,” Senate energy committee head Sherwin Gatchalian said.
The latest discovery announced by the Department of Energy (DOE) is the Alegria oil field, which is found to have commercial quantities of natural gas and oil resources. However, it could only power up a 60-megawatt (MW) gas plant and produce only 180 to 360 barrels of oil per day.
Solar panels follow the contours of a terraced rice field in San Rafael, Bulacan.
Albeit small, the agency said this is still a positive development since this will help the economy because it will support the local industry using crude oil.
Contracting round
On a larger scale, the DOE launched the Philippine Conventional Energy Contracting Program (PCECP), a process through which the agency awards service contracts for the exploration and development of various energy resources, including oil.
It offered 14 predetermined areas (PDAs) but received offers to explore only four areas. The agency also received nominations for prospective areas in Southeast Luzon Basin, Northwest Palawan Basin, Sulu Sea Basin and Agusan-Davao Basin.
Senate energy committee head Sherwin Gatchalian
“We’re happy to get a third of the predetermined areas,” commented DOE Assistant Secretary Leonido J. Pulido III.
The DOE said it would continue to encourage investors, especially foreign firms, to participate in the program.
Though the Philippines is essentially a frontier country as far as energy resource development is concerned, Pulido said an existing territorial dispute on Recto Bank in the West Philippine Sea does not exactly make the country marketable.
“If you look at the context of the Philippines, we are currently competing against markets from Africa, we’re currently competing for investments from the US. In a lot of these international companies, the tendency really is to, shall we say, invest in areas that are very, very stable, where the risk is less. So there is difficulty, there is a challenge there and we are working on that,” commented Pulido.
Still, the DOE expressed hope that the contracting round would result in finding another Malampaya.
Renewables
While this is being pursued, the DOE is collaborating with the National Renewable Energy Board (NREB) to build a renewable energy (RE) portfolio of 2,000 megawatts by offering a green energy tariff via an auction.
NREB will allocate the RE capacity to the distribution utilities (DUs) which, in turn, are required to purchase RE because of their Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) mandate.
Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi said the Philippines remains open to the possibility of harnessing nuclear energy for the country’s energy requirements so long as it is both feasible and viable to implement the highest safety and compliance standards.
Atty. Monalisa Dimalanta, NREB chairman, explained that the implementation of the program must coincide with the RPS, a policy mandating DUs to source a minimum portion of energy from renewable sources, thus guaranteeing a market for RE generators.
NREB is the advisory body tasked by the law to recommend policies, rules and standards to govern the implementation of the RE law, which granted fiscal and nonfiscal incentives to RE projects.
This plan, said DOE Secretary Alfonso Cusi, will help achieve the target of increasing the country’s renewable capacity to 15,304 megawatts by 2030.
Another key policy lined up to hit the country’s target of 22,000 MW in RE capacity, with RE accounting for 35 percent of the total energy mix by 2030, is the Green Energy Option (GEO).
GEO, Cusi said, will empower consumers to demand that their energy is sourced from renewable resources.
Meanwhile, a consumer group said it would closely monitor the DOE and NREB on how they will enforce the proposed green energy tariff program.
“The DOE is mulling a green rate for renewable energy players. The DOE is planning to set a ceiling price for new renewable energy players to attract investors and promote competition in the subsector, but LKI [Laban Konsyumer Inc.] is cautious about this,” said LKI president Victor Dimagiba.
LKI urged the agencies to focus on the possible rate impact on consumers and asked to be allowed to participate in crafting the proposed policy.
“DOE should show that there is no subsidy with RE under their proposal. Hopefully, this is not an innovation of the Feed in Tariff [FIT] and FIT Allowance power rate scheme, which the consumer group had consistently opposed,” Dimagiba said.
Gatchalian expressed the same concern, saying the DOE and the NREB must conduct a careful study on the program in order to prevent any unnecessary pass-on charges to consumers.
“Will this new tariff require subsidy and, if so, how much will the rate effect on consumers be? These are some of the things that the DOE needs to thoroughly study before they push through with the plan,” said the senator.
Go nuclear?
Another path being pursued by the DOE to boost energy security amid the looming Malampaya depletion is nuclear energy.
Cusi said the Philippines remains open to the possibility of harnessing nuclear energy for the country’s energy requirements so long as it is both feasible and viable to implement the highest safety and compliance standards.
Citing the technical assessment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the DOE listed the use of nuclear energy for possible inclusion in the country’s energy mix.
Cusi said his office has submitted to the Office of the President the proposed national policy on nuclear energy. He said the policy addresses the issue of whether nuclear energy is going to be an option for the country, especially since “there are provinces already that are available [and] ready to take nuclear as a power source.”
In fact, during President Duterte’s visit to Moscow last week, the Philippines and Russia agreed to “jointly explore” the prospects of constructing a nuclear power plant in the Philippines.
This plan, however, is risky, according to Gatchalian. “We should study this well because it’s very risky and nuclear power plants should have a lot of safeguards,” he said, adding that an in-depth study must be conducted.
Meantime, the country will continue to be heavily dependent on oil imports while industry stakeholders continue to aggressively pursue and support new players, conduct more oil exploration discoveries, and invest in other forms of renewable energy.
“Together with our country’s economic management team, the DOE and your entire energy family remain unyielding in finding ways to manage the situation at hand.
“We will not rest from pushing vital industry reforms, including the crafting of policies that promote the exploration and development of our indigenous energy resources, the expansion of our renewable energy capabilities, uphold the integrity of safety and resiliency standards, and bring power to unserved and underserved areas in the Philippines,” the DOE said.
These are the promises of DOE. Only time will tell if the country will be able to achieve these in time to find a new replacement for the Malampaya gas facility, which remains to be the single, most important energy project for the country.
