(VEN) – Energy efficiency (EE) activities have been deployed intensively in many localities and received positive response from the domestic business community.
The sixth national energy efficiency conference recently held in Bac Ninh Province
Looking ahead, energy efficient activities will be further promoted to every industry, said Cao Quoc Hung, Deputy Director General of Ministry of Industry and Trade’s General Directorate of Energy, at the sixth national energy efficiency conference recently held in Bac Ninh Province.
National energy efficiency program has been widely deployed and proved effective
EE activities have been strongly developed in the country in recent years. Up to now, most of the provinces and cities nationwide have set up EE departments specializing in raising EE awareness and providing support for businesses. Vietnam successfully organized the Earth Hour 2012 event; broadcast hundreds of EE articles on the radio and television channels; held contests on EE writing, EE Building and EE in Industry and Building.
According to Director of Hanoi Energy Efficiency Center Dao Hong Thai, EE Building and EE in Industry and Building contests attracted 300 businesses nationwide with 92 participants going into the final round. Over the past three years, 54 businesses have won EE prizes and about 1,000 EE solutions have been successfully applied, saving for 50,400 tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE), equivalent to VND1.17 trillion, and reducing 184,500 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Many businesses received EE support to improve performance last year in accordance with Circular 09/2012 /TT-BCT including 11 companies supported to deploy the ISO 50001 system; 12 companies supported in changing production lines; 190 companies and more than 60 buildings receiving energy audit assistance. Generally, the whole country saved 1.67 billion kWh of electricity last year, equivalent to 1.5 percent of commercial electricity output, equivalent to VND2.2 trillion.
According to Eng. Trinh Van Hoan from Vietnam Steel Corporation’s Technical Safety Committee, the corporation has actively applied EE measures in production processes to reduce costs including shortening melting time, using water to cool up furnaces, shortening furnace-feeding time, and using batching liquid iron. These EE measures helped reduce the fuel consumption by almost 20 percent.
Specific energy efficiency targets
Representatives at the conference agreed that EE activities have brought many benefits to provincial businesses; however, there are still obstacles to EE activities such as insufficient funding levels and low EE capacity. For example, provincial funding for EE activities usually comes in the second quarter or even third quarter, too late for the implementation of EE projects.
So, it is needed to make specific EE goals for every year and each specific industry. EE activities should be further promoted including building EE capacity for local energy conservation centers and training energy auditors.
In particular, as EE activities require businesses to invest large funds in technology to reduce energy consumption, funding sources have become a major issue for businesses. According to Director of Ho Chi Minh City Energy Conservation Center (HCMC EEC) Huynh Kim Tuoc, HCMC ECC is offering ESCO-provided EE services (i.e. ESCO provides EE solutions for businesses and receive profit from the applied based on the rate mutually agreed in advance). This is considered to be the most effective solution and should be further promoted in the future.
Next year, the 7th national energy efficiency conference will be held in Tien Giang Province./.
By Bao Ngoc
Đăng ký: VietNam News