Wednesday, October 22, 2014

SM wants all malls to save electricity

Manila Standard Today
By Jenniffer B. Austria | Oct. 22, 2014 at 11:20pm

SM Investments Corp., the conglomerate that owns the country’s largest shopping mall chain, said it will comply with the government’s energy conservation measures as long as all shopping malls participate in the program.

SMIC chief finance officer Jose Sio said the company was willing to use the company’s generator sets, lower the temperature of the air-conditioning units in shopping malls and even reduce operating hours to help lessen power demand.

Sio, however, said the government should come up with a regulation ordering all shopping malls to reduce operating hours. “We will help but everybody should do the same,” Sio said.

Sio said the shortening of shopping malls’ operating hours would have little impact on the company’s sales.

Aside from SM group which operates SM malls, other major shopping mall operators in the country are Robinsons Land Corp. of the Gokongwei family and Ayala Land Inc. of the Zobel group. SM Prime operates 49 malls in the country.

Sio said the company’s shopping malls, hotels and office buildings were all equipped with generator sets in case of prolonged brownouts.

Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla earlier said consumers in Luzon should anticipate daily one-hour power outages during the dry months next year.

Petilla said anticipated daily blackouts could be reduced from two to three hours to only one hour in the months of March to May, if distributor Manila Electric Co. effectively implemented the interruptible load program, which encourages companies to deload from the Luzon grid during peak hours by running their generating sets. source

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