Power Usage in Visayas Drops for Earth Hour

The Visayas grid saved a total of 34.67 megawatts of electricity during the observance of Earth Hour from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday.

A National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) report showed the non-coincident maximum load drop in the Visayas are as follows: Negros, 8.69 MW; Cebu, 6.68 MW; Panay, 6.39 MW; Leyte-Samar, 11.61 MW; and Bohol, 1.3 MW.

In Bacolod, the Earth Hour ceremony was hosted by SM City Bacolod where 1,000 candles were lighted around the giant Earth Hour centerpiece.

During the hour-long lights-off, representatives from various organizations and sectors delivered Earth Hour messages.

Earlier in the afternoon, the Earth Hour Walk started at 4 p.m. from Capitol lagoon going to SM City grounds.

Malacañang encouraged the public who participated in this year’s Earth Hour to adopt the practice on a daily basis.

“Every year that this is commemorated, we see more and more people participating, but beyond the shutting of your lights (for an hour), we hope that we continue to do more on a daily basis to be able to conserve energy,” Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a radio interview over the weekend.

Earth Hour is a worldwide grassroots movement of the World Wide Fund to unite people to take action for the planet.

This year’s global tagline is “Use Your Power to Change Climate Change.”(PNA) JBP/NLG/TDE