Cost of living in the Philippines is always one of the most consistently searched for items here on PhlFAQS … your site to learn the answers to the FAQS (Frequently Asked Questions) about flying to the Philippines, moving to the Philippines, retiring in the Philippines and whatever else the “ringmaster” here decides to ramble on about.

I don’t get as many direct questions as I would like … and it occurs to me that one reason for that is, I hardly ever ask for them … d’oh. So, that’s what I am doing now. If you have a question, that’s connected to the Philippines, big or small, give me a shot. You can leave a comment, which I’ll always try to answer … but sometimes comments may get missed. It’s better to contact me directly through the secure, spam free contact page here on the site, leave a comment, or call me on 1-719-966-4295 (My US number that rings at my desk). I’ll shoot for a schedule right now that makes Friday as the day for a Q & A session. What do you want to know? (Image via Wikipedia )

 

 

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Q & A 19 Sep 2008  Air Con Electric Costs

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Randy C (Randy’s excellent Journey to Samal blog is a recommended read) asks:
Question: Found the part about your monthly kwh usage useful, because I didn’t really have anything to relate that to over there. How often do you run the aircon, and how many rooms?
Answer: Mita (Tots ‘N Tings and the Unofficial Cook) and I rent a 3 bedroom single story home in Marilao, Bulacan, about 20 kilometers north of Metro Manila. The house is approximately 1,000 square feet in living area and has a small amount of shade from exiting trees. It is typical low-cost employee housing (our subdivision was built about 40 years ago to accommodate employees of the Philippine Central Bank) the walls are reinforced hollow block skim coated on both inside and out, the windows are single-pane steel swing out casement style and the roof is a low, hip roof design covered with the ubiquitous corrugated GI sheet (stands for galvanized iron by the way, not GI like the military folks, but totally inaccurate as the material is galvanized steel, not iron … oh well).

Our electric service is via conventional overhead power pole service to a US made electric meter and thence to a US-made circuit beaker (main service) panel. Total service capacity is 60 amps. We are billed monthly by hand-delivered paper bill (there is virtually no working Philippine postal system, (you only think you got problems with the USPS) each business that wants to operate on a monthly billing scheme has to employ couriers to deliver bills individually) and I normally pay the bill, in cash, at the dedicated “Bill Paying” counter in our local mall’s customer service area. I could also pay at the power company’s local office by cash or check, or (a real rarity) pay by direct debit of my local BDO bank account. One thing I don’t do is delay .. typically power gets cut off within a few days of a bill’s due date … it pays to mark the calendar and follow up if you don’t get a bill in your hand on time, else things will get very dark and warm in a hurry.

Here on Luzon there is a distinct wet and dry season. Usage is highest in “high summer’ which is April through June and lowest during the dry ‘ber’ months of November through February. My last bill, for service from 15 August through 15 September was for 376kWh @ 9.0613 Pesos per Kwh ($0.19376 USD) for a total of PhP 3407.05, or about $72.87 USD at today’s rate. Philippine electricity has the distinction of being second most expensive in the world, only Japan is more costly. To put this in perspective, our rent is PhP 7,000, which is $149.68 USD at today’s rate, so our electric costs are basically 50% of our rent.

We have two individual one horsepower (12,000 BTU) window unit air conditioners, one in the master bedroom and one in the bedroom we use as Blog Central Bulacan. The wiring is ample to run both at once, but we seldom do. Typically the one in the computer room runs 6 or 8 hours a day (I seldom need to turn it on before 9 am) and the one in the bedroom runs 10 pm to 6 am or so … so that electric bill includes an average of 16 hours a day of 12,00 BTU air conditioning. The temperature makes much more difference than the time, it seems, because the units spend much of their time in “fan only” status, while in the hot months the compressor kicks in much more often. These units are over sized for the rooms they serve, if I were do it over again, I would buy a single one horsepower “split” unit with two “heads”, one head for each bedroom. The rest of the house gets by fine on open windows and fans.

How does that compare with your rent or mortgage payments versus your electric bill?

First of all, let me state this is not a picture of our "dirty kitchen" here in the Philippines.  But it might be someday, though.  Probably not, but one of the things my lovely wife and I have discussed at some length is smarter ways to make ourselves more energy independent.  The idea of making our own fuel from what is otherwise going to waste is attractive.  Diesel fuel from waste cooking oil is a very "trendy" item in these days of $4 gas.

In addition to using waste oil diesel for automotive use, we’ve talked already a few times here about people who want to live off grid and of course one possible solution for that kind of lifestyle would be to simply have your own diesel powered home generator … be your own power company.

If you buy your diesel fuel for a setup like that in today’s environment here in the Philippines you’ll find the numbers don’t work out at all … in other words if I replaced my 500 or 600 Kwh per month of commercial power with power from my own diesel gen set (a diesel engine and an alternator that puts out 220V 60 hz power) I would spend about five time my current bill to Meralco.  If I used a cheaper, lighter gasoline gen set it would be closer to six or seven times as expensive,so I think that idea is pretty much a non-starter.

But if my fuel costs were zero … wow, it suddenly becomes a very practical sounding proposition, doesn’t it?  Truth be told, it can certainly be done, and for some people it might be something worth pursuing.  However, first I’d suggest you read this Wired.com article on the state of the current cooking oil diesel fuel community.  This article covers the nuts and bolts of how the technology works and does a much more through job than I can.  After you’ve read it I’ll summarize what I feel are some important points about this home brewed biodiesel here in the Philippines.

Pros:

• In spite of the messiness factors involved, this will work.
• It’s simpler than it may appear once you get things set up
• It’s likely to be simpler and work better here because many of the tricky problems in making a good quality fuel are related to the climate … here it’s always hot so glycerine, waxiness problems and such are minimized
• There is a lot less regulation in semi-urban and rural areas.  If you want to, just do it (YMMV)
• Labor is cheap
• "junk" is big business here.  There are "bote boys" passing multiple times per day, asking for glass bottles, plastic trash, metal cans, scrap, newspapers, etc.  They earn their living selling their daily finds to "junk shops".  It would be very simple to have a number of these guys collecting waste cooking oil and delivering it to your processing plant. 

Cons:

• Of course, comma, what people say is "free" now has the price they paid to the origin plus their markup that you paid for their work, plus containers, and so on added in … still cheap, but virtually nothing is "free".  And prices go up and down rapidly depending on supply and demand.  Right now, in my area, no one collects.  A soon as there is any demand, expect a price to develop.  Remember, a hundred years ago, refineries could not give gasoline away.
• The physical plant is simple, but again not free.  And the process takes time.  It has to be worked, day in and day out.
• This is stinky, slimy, and poses a significant fire hazard in a country where most neighborhoods have virtually zero fire protection.  Is saving money worth burning up your house and maybe your children?  Look at the flammable slime on the floor and walls in the picture.
• You need a lot of caustic soda (lye) … Drano for example.  Where does the excess of that get disposed of?  Where I live, almost all houses are on septic tanks.  Do you know how much lye you can let into your tank before the digestion process stops and you become very good friends with the "Poso Negro" man (Septic tank sucker-outer)?
• If you have make more than you need, what will you do with it.  Can you sell fuel legally without a license, regulations, taxes, etc.?
• Motor fuel is highly taxed and regulated.  Make your own and you are legally stealing from the government.  (don’t bother me with your"live free or die" type arguments, I am talking here about life’s realities, not philosophy).  Do they care?  Will they come after you?  Something to consider.
• There just is no where near enough cooking oil used to support and significant amount of production.  Onesy-twosey operations like you always see in magazines are great stories … but can a town sustain 5 such operations, or 10, or 20?  This a big fallacy to me, I have seen biodiesel experiments for more than 20 years now, but all the McDonalds, Jollibee’s and KFC’s in the country don’t use that much oil.

Interesting, isn’t it.  especially how US media is suddenly "rediscovering" a lot of technology us "hippy types" of the ’60’s were trying to ’sell’ 50 years ago.  Let me know what else you want to know about in the energy department.