Enigin Update - Vietnam's Energy Efficiency Success but Improvements Still Needed
THE Vietnamese national programme on energy efficiency and conservation, enacted over the last five years, has recorded a 30 percent higher return than targeted.
"Cities and provinces throughout the country have conserved more than 4 billion kWh", said deputy minister of Industry and Trade Hoang Quoc Vuong at a meeting to review the programme's implementation yesterday.
The ministry's programme covered the 2006-10 period following the Prime Minister's instruction on electricity saving in production and consumption. More than 1.18 billion kWh was saved this year alone, equal to 1.4 per cent of total consumption.
Vuong revealed that the energy saving was pleasing, as the programme had been facing challenges due to prolonged droughts and erratic weather conditions.
The last five years saw a remarkable increase in electricity consumption with the demand for power growing by 13.7 per cent yearly, double GDP growth. Average electrical consumption per person almost doubled in the past five years, with each person consuming more than 980kWh per year.
The Industry and Trade Ministry has inspected more than 500 key enterprises and audited the accounts of electrical energy in 300 enterprises to develop a standard management system on efficient energy usage.
To achieve the programme's target, almost all provinces and cities issued their own instructions on promoting the implementation of efficient electrical energy usage and set up local steerage committees for the project.
The Directorate for Standards, Metrology and Quality in the last five years has completed 17 standard categories of efficient use of energy.
The promotional work for the programme was through collaboration between the Industry and Trade Ministry and the media across the country, according to Vuong.
The deputy minister, however, pointed to shortcomings in the programme's implementation. One of them was that large power consumers in the fields of industry, construction and small to medium-enterprises, who are still using outdated technology, which uses large amounts of energy. Moreover, a number of enterprises were not fully aware of the benefits of energy saving resulting in an ineffective implementation of the programme in some places.
The programme was not effectively implemented in State-run offices and companies which lacked strict supervision, especially where leaders exhibited little responsibility.
To better save energy, said Vuong, relevant ministries and sectors needed to complete the legal framework for the practice of efficient energy usage during this year, prompting the publishing of instructions of how to implement the Law on Energy Efficiency and Conservation, which was approved by the National Assembly earlier this year.
The deputy minister proposed the relevant ministries and sectors complete their requirement for energy efficiency standards and inform major energy consumers. Major provinces and cities should actively develop plans for energy efficiency and conservation, said Vuong, and apply the programme into their socio-economic development strategy.
Enigin Distributors in the region have a range of energy saving technology from Enigin that will reduce demand, emissions and energy costs.
Picture by Hulivili
