e-Vehicles in the Philippines

I am writing this in response to a discussion with a friend who saw some e-Trikes in Mandaluyong.

The e-Trikes program is a program of the Department of Energy, called (prepare for this) "Market Transformation through Introduction of Energy Efficient Electric Vehicles Project (e-Trikes)." For brevity, it is called the e-Trike Project.

The US$504-million (roughly, P21.672-billion) project was approved by the NEDA Board in 2012. The ADB Loan component was US$400 million, and an additional grant was US$5 million (for solar charging stations). The rest is from the Philippine Government's counterpart and the Clean Development Mechanism.

The goal of the project is to replace 100,00 traditional, gasoline-fed tricycles in the Philippines with electric tricycles to reduce carbon footprint of the transport sector. The DOE also says that with the efficiency of the e-Trikes, the e-Trike operator will earn more.

Upon observation, my friend said that, considering that the e-Trikes are more expensive, they should be larger (i.e., even larger than the one now, which is larger than the traditional ones) to accommodate more passengers and become more profitable for the drivers.

While I do not know the price of either the gas-fed tricycles and the e-Trike, I said that e-Trikes will take on the roles of tricycles, which serve shorter distances than jeepneys. E-Trikes will transport passengers to very specific destinations, like tricycles, as against jeepneys which drive in routes. Thus, e-Trikes cannot be larger than they are now, because making it bigger will make it energy-inefficient - the motor has to carry the heavier body (which would entail more energy consumption) without any passenger paying for it.

I also added that e-vehicles, in general, are more energy and cost-efficient than gas-fed vehicles because e-vehicles do not consume* energy during idle time. Electric vehicles also have nearly higher energy efficiency on any speed, compared against gas-fed vehicles which decrease with lower speeds. Also, even if some say that e-vehicles use electricity produced from fossil fueled power plants, the power plants are more efficient in converting fuel to electricity than individual vehicles converting fossil fuel to mechanical energy. This efficiency also means less carbon emission, if at all, as e-vehicles may have zero carbon emission if the power plant is RE-sourced.

Tesla, a renown electric vehicles manufacturer, even promotes use of solar power panels at home, so you can charge your e-vehicle and have ZERO carbon emission.

Regarding income for the drivers, this is what ADB says:

A conventional tricycle needs between 5 and 7 liters of gasoline to travel approximately 100 kilometers (km), costing 250 to 350 pesos. To travel the same 100 km, an e-trike will use between 3 kilowatt hours (kWh) and 5 kWh of electricity, costing only 30 to 50 pesos. The 200 peso difference in fuel savings will help the driver pay for the cost of the e-trike.

The e-Trikes Project (and e-vehicles in general) has many advantages and promises. While its proliferation would probably mean additional demand on power generation capacities, its long-term effect of efficiency and reduced carbon emission makes it a viable replacement to fossil-fueled, energy inefficient, greenhouse and acid rain-inducing gases emitting vehicles.

Just my thoughts.

For more info about the DOE's e-Trike project, go here.


NOTE:
*In physics, it is a basic law that matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. For the purpose of our conversation, we use "consume" to refer to the transformation of electric energy to mechanical energy.

DISCLAIMER:

The above, and all posts in this blog, is the author's best-effort attempt to understand and communicate the benefits of the project, and is not to be used as an official source of opinion or interpretation. The below sources are provided for that purpose.

Sources:
ADB, E-Trikes - Driving Change, accessed on July 8, 2014.
DOE Website, The E-Trike Project, accessed on July 8, 2014.
Philippine Gazette, NEDA Board approves e-trike and hydroelectric power plant uprating projects, accessed on July 8, 2014.
Wikipedia, Electric Vehicles, accessed on July 8, 2014.
Tesla Website, Top 5 Questions, accessed on July 8, 2014.
NEDA Board, "NEDA Board approves six projects in infrastructure, education & agriculture,"
accessed on July 8, 2014.

Blogging on Technology for Teaching

Back in 2008, I started an idea of blogging about technology for teaching, which includes technology not just for learning but also for the teaching profession. Unfortunately, I was not able to go beyond a few chapters, which mostly were introductory concepts, like hardware, software, and peopleware. That was in 2008, when I was still working at UP. Now, I work at a busier agency.

Still, I wanted to pursue that book, but I feel that I want to start with blogging the chapters instead, so that I can also get feedback about each item or topic that I want to talk about.

I would probably start with re-posting old posts about factors to consider when making decisions related to technology for teaching. (I recognize that a lot of things have happened since 2008, like the Google Docs becoming a mature system to Google Drive now. I hope to update these articles soon.)

I have a few ideas I hope to pursue, and I will post it there. For my first post, I will post my preliminary outline, which may change over time, of course.

So, I hope that new blog will help those who want to learn more how to leverage technology (particularly free and open source ones) to maximize learning opportunities.

See the first post in the next few weeks at http://trainingtechnologies.blogspot.com/.

Determining Price of Electricity in WESM

First and foremost, the price of electricity as paid by the customers is regulated by the Energy Regulatory Commission, as mandated by Republic Act 9136, or the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001. Part of the amount customers pay is the generation charge, which itself has to be approved by the ERC. Usually, the ERC approves a formula so that distribution utilities don't need to get ERC approval every billing month.

How does the generation charge come about? A distribution utility (whether a private distribution utility like Meralco or an electric cooperative) may source its power from two main sources: its own contracted power supply (through power supply agreements with independent power producers, or IPPs) and from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, or WESM. While the price of the electricity a distribution utility gets from its contracted power supply is fixed (e.g., P9/kilowatt-hour for 10 years), the price of electricity the distribution utility sources from WESM fluctuates as the WESM is, well, a "spot market." Among other things, this means that its price is determined every interval of time (in the Philippine situation, every hour).

As a market, this means there are many consumers and many suppliers. Due to the technical limitation of electricity (i.e., electricity goes where the circuit leads to, not necessarily to who ordered the electricity), determination of price of electricity in WESM is based on "least-cost solution meeting demand." Here is how it works:

1. NGCP forecasts demand level (including reserve requirement and customer submitted demand in WESM) for each hour. 
2. IPPs submit their bids, including capacity and price offer (baseload and peak).
3. The bids are arranged from lowest-priced to highest-priced to determine which generator will be dispatched first.
4. The market price of electricity is determined by the price of the bid at the level of capacity (based on price bid) that addresses the demand, and all bidders (including lower price bids) will be paid that price. Those generators which priced their bid too high would not be dispatched, hence, not paid.
5. Reserve capacities dispatched will be priced based on the highest priced. 

To illustrate the determination of price and how demand level and supply interact to determine price of electricity in the spot market, you may see this online simulation. (You can play with the elements.)

In this simulation, you can see that the price of electricity in the spot market will be the price of the bid that meets the demand level. If the demand for electricity lowers, it is possible to have the price of electricity go down, because the next higher bid price will be dispatched. 

This says two things, among others:

1. For the IPPs, there is an incentive to increase operational (i.e., production) efficiency (i.e., lower the price). If you are an IPP and you bid at a lower price (presumably, because you have the operational efficiency to do so), when someone else with a higher price gets approved, the price of that higher offering IPP will be the price that will be paid to you.
2. For the consumers, there is an incentive to increase energy efficiency. The lower the demand, the lower the price of electricity that will be cleared (i.e., selected as that which meets demand).

However, as a free market, the determination of price is limited on the assumption of rational decision making to pursue the most cost-efficient level. This means that the WESM methodology of price determination is not exempt from outlier behavior of an IPP pursuing individual higher revenue by creating an artificial shortage of supply in one power plant and bidding a very high price on another, knowing that the artificial shortage will ensure dispatch of the highest price bid.

Reminder: Most distribution utilities source their power from power supply agreements, or contracts with IPPs. Usually, they get only 10% or unexpected demand from WESM, unless 1) their power supplier goes down or 2) there is an unexpected higher demand that their power supplier cannot provide.

Disclaimer: The above is an unofficial and non-technical interpretation of how the WESM works. WESM operation is a very complicated integrated process of economics and engineering. There are other rules and limitations in WESM that have not been included here. The above is just an attempt to  focus on the economic side of determining price of electricity. Corrections and comments will be appreciated.

Installing Microsoft-based TrueType Fonts in Ubuntu 14.04

So I installed Ubuntu 14.04, or Trusty Tahr. Like previous Ubuntu versions I have installed (started with 9.04), the Linux-based operating system works just out of the box.

I particularly like the Ubuntu font, which I don't remember having in Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin)

However, for me, as I have to use MS Office-based TrueType fonts, like Times New Roman and Arial, I have to add these fonts as an additional step. Unfortunately, while the application ttf-mscorefonts-installer can be installed from the Ubuntu Software Center, it won't really work.

To enable the MS fonts, you have to do it from the Terminal so that you can accept the End-User License Agreement (EULA). To do this, just open your Terminal, and type this:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ttf-mscorefonts-installer

You will, of course, have to enter your system password.

After that, you should be able to read and accept the EULA, and the fonts will be downloaded and unpacked in your Ubuntu computer. After finishing the installation, you can go to your office application (e.g., LibreOffice), and find the new fonts useable there.

What is ILP?

The  DOE published on its website the announcement that the Interruptible Load Program, or ILP, will be rolled out in Luzon to address the apparent power generation capacity shortfall in light of the projected increase of demand during the summer months.

The program is a demand-side management system* that allows large power consumers (e.g., industrial plants, malls) which have their own generators to get compensation if they use them. Through ILP, the participating end-users (or the participants) agree with their distribution utility (DU) or electric cooperative (EC) to disconnect from the distribution network (i.e., not get their electricity needs from their DU or EC) and use their generators at agreed times. During such period, the freed up power capacity can then be made available to non-participants, who will pay an additional cost as compensation for the participants. The additional cost is approved by the ERC, based on the formula set in ERC's Resolution No. 8, series of 2010.

The ILP is a manifestation of the economic truism: as demand of goods exceeds its supply, its price will increase. In ILP, this is manifested by the situation that non-participants will have to pay for the electricity consumption of the participants just to enjoy availability of electricity.

You may ask: How come the non-participants have to pay for the fuel used by the participants, considering that the non-participants were not present in the arrangement (i.e., during the participants' application with their distribution utility or electric cooperative.)? Where is the justice in making the smaller users pay for the use of generator of the larger consumers. Is this like against the idea of inclusive growth?

The rationale is that the participants may incur higher costs in the use of their generator sets, and the non-participants get the benefit of avoiding brownouts.

While I cannot argue with the point of "avoiding brownouts," the rationale of compensation for the costs of using the generator sets is questionable for me. Don't businesses consider generator sets as assets, which have to be used to generate revenue? Which means their consumers actually pay for them for every object they buy from that establishment as part of their good's price. I am sure they do. Also, as assets, they have insurance, which the consumers also pay for (again, included in the price of goods).

Just my thoughts.


*Demand-sidemanagement refers to strategies done to reduce demand or affect pattern of demand for electricity. My own rendition only.