The Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation (EVN HCMC) said that in the past five years, they launched many campaigns to promote efficient use of electricity. As a result, the families of all EVN HCMC staff members have been committed to saving 10 percent of power consumption at home. In response to the appeal of the Ho Chi Minh City Women’s Union, 100,000 households have been committed to saving power.

EVN HCMC has opened 35 classes to provide knowledge on efficient use of electricity to more than 4,000 administrative offices and 600 companies.

EVN HCMC has coordinated with the Public Lighting Company to adjust the time for switching on/off public lights according to practical demands in each season, replace high capacity private lamps with compact lamps, cut down 50 percent of advertising lamps and park lights, and conduct energy audits for big customers of EVN HCMC.

In addition, EVN HCMC has built a database to serve the management of power saving activities. They have also carried out some projects to assist propaganda activities. Specifically, they have coordinated with the local government to promote power saving through programs aiming to popularize the use of compact lamps, T8 tube lamps and solar water heaters.

Preliminary statistics show that in the past five years, Ho Chi Minh City saved more than 700 million kWh of electricity or nearly 1.5 percent of the total amount of commercial electricity, contributing to reducing power shortage that faced city people in the recent period.

Nguyen Van Ly, the deputy general director of EVN HCMC, said that along with power saving efforts, Ho Chi Minh City is taking the lead in using renewable energy.

Ho Chi Minh City has a plan to use solar energy to operate the entire public lighting system, which will allow it to save more than 73 million kWh of electricity each year and at the same time reduce considerably the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by using less fossil fuel to generate power.

The Steering Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City Adaptation to Climate Change Program is designing many environmentally friendly projects aiming to utilize renewable energy resources, which will be developed in the near future.

In the recent period, some districts of Ho Chi Minh City have developed some models of using solar power and achieved good initial results.

Specifically, the Saigon Hi-tech Park has installed 28 lampposts using wind and solar power. The Saigon Agriculture Incorporation (Sagri) is expediting the construction of a biogas power plant for the Phuoc Long Swine Breeding Enterprise in Cu Chi District with initial investment of about US$1 million. Notably, the lighting system using solar power on the Anh Sao (Starlight) Bridge in the Phu My Hung New Urban Area has been put into operation.

By Thuy Hang