A partnership with the Church
WeGen has established strategic relationships with most of the 85 Catholic dioceses covering the entire Philippines to help them generate clean and sustainable solar power on the rooftops of their churches, schools, seminaries, and other church-owned buildings.
Through its partnerships with the Catholic Church and other religious entities and congregations, WeGen reaches out to schools and other educational institutions by holding classroom discussions on solar technology, the importance of efforts to battle climate change, and the urgent need for the country and the rest of the world to make the shift to renewable energy sources as a means to save the planet for future generations.
Integral to WeGen’s mission and vision as a company is active advocacy for the use of cleaner, sustainable, and renewable energy sources. Its presentations are focused not only on the sale of solar panels and inverters – they are also discussions on climate change, its impact, and the urgent need to reduce homes’ and industries’ carbon footprint as a way to slow down the planet’s degradation.
Antique’s St. Anthony’s College is WeGenized
Among the projects that WeGen takes pride in is the 70.68 kWp solar PV system it installed at Anthony’s College in Antique. Through this installation and WeGen’s continuous monitoring, the school has decreased its electricity costs while making a strong statement for the environment. The college has also made positive adjustments to its electric power utilization to maximize the benefits of the solar PV system.
According to St. Anthony’s College President, Fr. Edione Febrero, their interest in solar energy is directly connected to their clean energy advocacy. “We saw the destructive effects of coal mining on Semirara Island first hand.”
Semirara Island is in Caluya Municipality, Antique, between the islands of Mindoro and Panay. Semirara is where one of the largest coal mines in Southeast Asia operates, run by the Semirara Mining Corporation.
Using solar technology and utilizing solar energy was the solution Fr. Edione and the rest of the St. Anthony’s College community found to support their advocacy.
“After seeing the devastation in Semirara, we wanted to shift to energy sources that are cleaner and safer than what the coal plants produce,” Fr. Edione said.
“Even if coal plants and coal mining bring a kind of temporary progress in the lives of some, it is not a sustainable kind of progress because the industry is not clean, and it is not safe in the long run for people’s health. We say a firm ‘no’ to the extractive industry of coal and ‘yes’ to the sun.”
“We are grateful to WeGen’s Laudato Si’ initiative because it gave us the opportunity to engage and support our clean energy advocacy. We now let the roofs speak for themselves: we are all for clean and renewable energy,” he said.
A Demonstration of Advocacy
Fr. Edione also said that installing a solar PV system in St. Anthony’s was a “more visible demonstration of their advocacy and its impact on society.”
“Students are also able to see concrete and very feasible alternatives to coal and other traditional sources of energy,” he said.
St. Anthony has a total of 4,164 students, 215 staff and employees, and all of them are aware of the reasons why the administration installed the solar PV system. The school and various buildings occupy five hectares of land.
The project became fully operational in April 2019. The system design for the school was mainly based on data captured from power loggers that were staged in the school premises. The initial consumption profile for St. Anthony’s College was a baseload of 20kW throughout the day until nighttime. As for the Projected Annual coverage, it was pegged at 30, but in the coming months, this is seen to likely improve because of the school’s initiatives to change its consumption behavior.
WeGen senior design engineer and project installation manager Ma. Christine Nucum expressed pride over what she termed as “S. Anthony College’s laudable achievement.”
“WeGen presented them with an option to go green and save energy, and they took everything we explained to them about solar energy and how their solar PV system works, and acted on their own to be more energy efficient. This is proof-positive that projects like this can and should be venues of collaboration between companies like WeGen and clients to develop environmental awareness,” she said.
Christine said that the St. Anthony’s College community did more than get a solar PV system installed on their rooftop – “They themselves made efforts to do research on what else they can do with the system. The system itself is dynamic, and the school authorities made the initiative to determine means to improve it further,” she said.
Fr. Edione shared that they are now focused on shifting their electricity load and maximizing the balance between their consumption and generation. “We want to determine how else we can move our energy consumption load/appliances to the areas covered by the solar PV installation (i.e. which ones are powered by the panels).”
The Benefits of Solar power
The college is also reaping more benefits from their solar PV system. Fr. Edione explained that before they had the panels installed, the school’s electricity bills were enormous. “We wanted to add aircon units, but we could not afford to. It would’ve made our bills even bigger, and we didn’t want that at all.
Since the school installed the system, it has enjoyed savings of P50,000 on its electricity costs, and it has been able to install an additional 12 air conditioning units. The library has been airconditioned, and students and faculty enjoy the cooler atmosphere of the facility from 4:30am at 4:30pm, The administration building with its many offices, the senior high school building with all its classrooms also benefit from the electricity generated by the solar PV system.
In addition to their reduced electricity bill, St. Anthony is now also able to keep its library and audio-visual room open during the weekends and rent out its computer laboratories to students and members of the community. This has brought the school additional income which has helped provide more funds for air-conditioning units in other rooms for student and faculty use. Future savings will also go towards improving the facilities of more school rooms.
Fr. Edione shares that they have more plans to maximize the PV system: they are thinking of opening a weekend laundry shop for students and the school staff, and possibly a bakery. St. Anthony’s College also wants to explore its options for system expansion which includes installing more panels, and integrating a storage system for all the excess energy the solar PV system generates.
“We are in constant contact with the WeGen Technical Group which continues to give us tech support and answer all our inquiries. We are very proud of our solar PV system, and we teach the importance of shifting to renewable energy such as solar to our students, faculty, and non-faculty staff,” said Fr. Edione.
The actual solar panel installation process was also an eye-opener for Fr. Edione.
“I was surprised when I saw how easy and straightforward the whole process was. The WeGen team went to our school, conducted the assessment with technical engineers, took drone shots and videos. Soon after the design for our rooftop was put together, and construction was underway. The company and the team that handled our project did not explain just the technical requirements for the installation, but also its benefits: we understood that we weren’t just going to cut our electricity costs, but we were also helping bring down our school’s carbon footprint. By lessening our reliance on electricity generated by coal-fired plants, we contribute to efforts to save the planet. It might be a small effort, but many small efforts when combined still count,” he said.
Fr. Edione is also appreciative of the WeGen’s monitoring app which is used to track the school’s electricity consumption and the solar PV system’s operation.
“It’s a very effective and handy tool because it helps us manage the solar PV system more efficiently. Speaking for myself, I like how even if I’m far away from the school, I just need to open the app on my phone and I can see how the solar panels are working and how much power it's generating,” he said.
The Immediate Alternative to coal-fired plants
The good father also shared that the installation of the solar PV panels has led to behavioral changes among the students, as well as the faculty and non-faculty staff.
“After the panels were installed, more people here have become aware of solar power and why it’s a viable alternative to traditional energy sources. We have all become more aware of how we use electricity and we can maximize it -- especially now that it’s possible to get more of it at less expense. Here in our school, we’ve adapted to our solar PV system and how it works. For instance, we know that we should only turn on the aircon units when the sun is up, and we can use the aircon so long as the sun is in the sky and our panels are absorbing its light and converting them to energy. We are all intent on maximizing the electricity we get from the panels and lessen our consumption at night,” he said.
In the end, Fr. Edione said that going solar led to a win-win situation on all fronts for St. Anthony’s College.
“St. Anthony’s College is an institution that carries clear anti-coal advocacy. For years we have done our best to convince as many people as possible to resist coal and the establishment, operations of coal mining plants. It is hard to convince people that coal mining and coal-fired power plants are bad for human health and the environment; it’s really an uphill battle. Now that we have installed a solar PV system on our roofs, we are able to show people that there really are alternatives to coal-generated electricity and that these alternatives are safe, clean, and renewable. Resorting to solar power is the most effective and fastest way we saw to strengthen our advocacy,” he emphasized.
“The roofs tell the whole world that using solar panels is better than using fossil fuels that are not clean and sustainable. We opt for something sustainable.” #