One of the largest plants in the area of Chau Khe craft village, Dinh Bang commune, Bac Ninh province, the Xanh Ha Steel Plant sells about 3,500 tonnes of steel billets and 10,000 tonnes of finished steel products each year, consuming more than 4,000 MWh of electricity and about 900 tonnes of coal.

"Our research could pave the way for turning electricity from the atmosphere into an alternative energy source for the future," said study leader Fernando Galembeck, Ph.D. His research may help explain a 200-year-old scientific riddle about how electricity is produced and discharged in the atmosphere. "Just as solar energy could free some households from paying electric bills, this promising new energy source could have a similar effect," he maintained.

In the 1990s, the solar energy technology was introduced into Vietnam through projects funded by the governments of Spanish, Dutch, French and German. Many solar energy projects have been put into application since then, mainly to meet electricity needs of people in remote and rural areas, where the national grid has not reached. Unfortunately, those above projects are only in pilot scale.

Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC), an industry leader in tidal, river and deep-water ocean current energy technology and projects, announced today that its Beta Power System, the largest ocean energy "power plant" ever installed in U.S. waters, has successfully generated grid-compatible power from tidal currents at its Cobscook Bay site in Eastport, Maine.

One purpose of developing solar power technology is to support the load for the national grid and enable consumers to use EVN’s electricity at peak hours with price of off-peak hours (price of grid electricity at night is only 500 dong per Kwh, while during peak hour it is about 2000 dong, calculated accumulatively).

Finns get almost one third of their electricity second-hand, after industrial users have had first dibs at it. Vesa Koivisto of Fortum (the largest utility in Scandinavia) told me that paper mills actually supply about one third of the electricity on the grid. Why?

This has led to the increased production of PV cells not only in Europe but also in Taiwan and china. China alone produces 2GW solar cells annually. In February 2010 the price of electricity using PV panel is $4.27 per watt. Today the price of photovoltaic cells of different companies is different. The General electric solar panel costs $ 228 to $385. This trend would decline with more competition.

Intimex Thanh Chuong Tapioca Factory, under Nghe An Intimex branch, was put into operation in 2004. The factory has increased the capacity twice: from 60 to 120 tons per day and from 120 to 180 tons per day. Its coal consumption and the rate of raw cassava over cassava products used to be much higher compared to other factories in Vietnam which have similar scale. Consumption of the company in 2008: 3.7 million kWh of electricity per year; 2.8 million kilograms of coal; 27,000 kilograms of diesel oil. After joining the Component of Cleaner Production in industry of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, leaders of the company has made several concrete measures in energy efficiency.

According to statistics, currently, the number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Da Nang accounts for about 90% of total enterprises. Annually, the energy consumption of Da Nang is about 800 million kWh, in which, commercial electricity for production is about 700 million kWh. Besides, in the production process, large amounts of FO and DO oil used are also increasing every year.

Many simple methods can be applied to save at least 5-10 percent of electricity consumption, for example turning off electrical equipment when use is not necessary or operating air conditioners at suitable temperatures. However, many companies still ignore these simple methods.

"The total electricity bills that all households in Vietnam have to pay is VND5,200 billion/year. If each household just saves 10% of their electricity consumption, the amount saved will be a really big number.

Founded in the 1990s, the production line, machinery and auxiliary equipments at Thang Long Plastic Joint Stock Company are not compatible, leading to inefficient energy consumption. In order to find solutions to the problem, Thang Long Plastic Joint Stock Company has conducted energy audit and applied various measures to reduce electricity costs as well as to improve power efficiency.

Five years ago, facing with the need to save electricity to cut down power expense, Sai Gon Morin Hue Hotel – a four starred hotel in Thua Thien – Hue decided to replace the electrical water heaters with heaters using solar energy, although this type of product had not been very popular in the city back then.

Electricity consumption was reduced by 7 to 10% compared to 2008; in the first 3 months of 2010, 5% of electricity consumption was cut down, compared with the same period in 2009. Those are the first benefits that energy efficiency methods have brought to the Landmark building in Ho Chi Minh City.

That is precise data calculated on actual energy consumption for lighting of Vietnam announced by Dr. Vu Minh Mao, Chairman of Vietnam lighting association at the seminar "Effective Lighting and Energy Conservation "held in Ha Long City, Quang Ninh.

In order to help India’s rural masses who lack electricity, Vodafone Essar Ltd. recently developed a solar-powered mobile phone. According to officials, there are almost 20 million new mobile subscribers each month in India. The problem is that many of them live in rural areas, where the energy supply can be patchy at best.

The use of conventional energy such as fuel-wood and charcoal in rural and mountainous areas in our country has reduced the forest area and increased the amount of CO2 emission. Meanwhile, modern energies like electricity, gasoline, petroleum are becoming more and more costly, unaffordable for people in remote areas. A positive solution is to use biogas – an in-place and cheap energy source for farmers.

The REF – a World Bank-supported public institution aiming to provide electricity to every Cambodian village by 2020 – plans to sell the solar panels to rural households on a monthly payment basis, executive director Loeung Keosela was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.

The building of new renewable energy sources continued to outstrip new fossil fuel power plants in Europe and the US during 2009, a report has shown. The UN-backed study said renewables accounted for 60% of new electricity generation capacity in Europe. And in the US, green electricity accounted for more than half of the generation capacity built last year.

Thua Thien Hue has a large number of small and medium enterprises (accounting for 95% of the total), many of which have obsolete equipment consuming much energy. Meanwhile 80% of energy used for living and production every year comes from electricity.