The IFC/GEF Efficient Lighting Initiative (ELI) was an energy efficiency program funded by a USD 15 million grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and administered globally by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). ELI’s goal was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by accelerating the growth of the market for energy-efficient lighting
technologies and services. ELI took place in seven countries: the Philippines, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Peru, and South Africa.

A USD 2.5 million country budget sustained ELI-Philippines for a program duration of over three years, from May 2000 to December 2003. ELI was implemented in the Philippines by Soluziona Philippines S.A.

The pre-ELI Lighting Market Assessment revealed a wide and deep penetration of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). This market position was largely attributed to the influx of low cost, low-quality CFLs. Almost 6 out of 10 CFL brands were being traded illegally, as they had not been granted the government’s Import Commodity Clearance (an assurance of
minimum safety and quality). This market infection carried both benefits and risks. Although more households gained access to efficient lighting products, consumers were left vulnerable to fake, substandard and unreliable CFLs due to the proliferation of low cost, low-quality CFL imports.

The mission of ELI was therefore two-fold: (1) to design and implement a program to would not only shift the demand from the base technology to energy-efficient lighting products, but also from low-quality to high-quality CFLs; and (2) to sustain the lighting market transformation by making sure that consumers did not revert back to the base technology.

As part of the overarching ELI framework, IFC developed a toolkit of lighting market transformation strategies. From this toolkit, ELI- Philippines used the following tools to achieve its goals in the residential and non-residential sectors:

• Public Education, Marketing and Standards
• Electric Utility Programs
• Transaction Support
• Market Aggregation
• Ensuring Sustainability

Residential Sector

The Public Relations, Advocacy and Advertising Campaign and the Point- of-Sale and Vendor Education activities built general awareness among consumers, retailers, and wholesalers about the economic and environmental benefits of efficient lighting technologies. The said activities also created recognition of the ELI Green Leaf logo (shown on the top right of this page) in the Philippine market. ELI’s promotional campaigns advised consumers to look for the ELI logo as a sign of high-quality products.
Through a partnership between ELI and lighting manufacturers/importers, CFLs which met ELI quality criteria (see text box and discussion on ELI Logo Labeling in Sec. 3.4.3 for more details) were allowed to display the logo on their packaging.

By creating demand for ELI-qualified lighting products, ELI enticed lighting manufacturers /importers to increase their own sales and marketing efforts for these products. With the increasing number of ELI-qualified CFL brands and variants, consumers now have access to a variety of high-quality CFLs at competitive and more affordable prices, as evidenced by the drop in the average price of CFLs dropped from a range of
USD 6-10 (at the start of the country program) to USD 3-5 (at the end of the program term).

Commercial/Industrial/Institutional Sectors

The success of the ELI activities for the C/I/I sectors depended on how the ELI activities complemented the nation’s ongoing energy and economic development strategies. ELI’s own strategy was to provide technical assistance for the development of lasting tools for utilities, banks, lighting professionals, energy service companies (ESCOs), and
cooperatives, in the hopes that these stakeholders would become promotional agents of efficient lighting who would continue the market transformation over the long term.

Prior to ELI, utilities were reluctant to implement Demand-Side Management (DSM) due to the inadequate incentives in the 1996 DSM Framework. ELI therefore provided technical assistance for the review, amendment and improvement of the existing framework. ELI succeeded in building government-industry consensus towards the approval of the Amended DSM Framework, as manifested in a collaborative agreement involving 71
power industry stakeholders. All reports and documentation necessary to enable the regulatory process to amend the 1996 DSM Framework have been formally accepted by the ERC. The proposed amendment has been accepted into the ERC’s pipeline, but its formal adoption has been held up due to a backlog of regulatory cases.

ELI likewise collaborated with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) in the preparation and development of the Model ESCO Transaction bid documents, namely the Request for Proposal (RFP) and the Energy Services Agreement (ESA). The DBP intends to proceed with the subsequent phases of project implementation, and to use the RFP and ESA for the procurement of ESCO services for their lighting retrofit project. These documents can also serve as a guide for other ESCOs and financing institutions.