Important role of enterprises in developing high efficiency public lighting

31/07/2011

Lighting is one of the important industries, which consumes 25% of the total national commercial electricity, plays an important role in socio-economic development of the country, contributes to political and social security of urban areas.

After five years of implementation, the Vietnam Energy Efficient Public Lighting (VEEPL) project has ended but its impacts have been sustainably developed. On the sidelines of the ceremony of delivering the project’s results to relevant ministries, journalist of tietkiemnangluong.com.vn site has had an interview with Prof. Dr. Nguyen Khoa Son - Director of VEEPL Project on the implementation of the project's results in the coming time.

Sir, in 5 recent years, what results has the VEEPL project has achieved?

Lighting is one of the important industries, which consumes 25% of the total national commercial electricity, plays an important role in socio-economic development of the country, contributes to political and social security of urban areas.

In five recent years, the project has mobilized a large number of stakeholders, including ministries, sectors, agencies, organizations, localities and businesses. It has resulted in the project creating tremendous impacts on the development of lighting industry in Vietnam towards energy efficiency and conservation. Especially, the project has made important contributions to the development and improvement of the policy framework for public lighting in general and energy efficient public lighting in particular in Vietnam.

All activities of the project implemented for the past five years have created a favorable environment for the widespread application of energy efficiency technologies and management solutions in lighting in Vietnam. The achievements of the project have contributed significantly to the successful implementation of the National Program on Energy Efficiency and Conservation.

Has the project achieved the initially proposed targets?

Until this moment, it can be said that the project has achieved all the proposed targets, especially targets of energy efficiency and greenhouse emission reduction.

The success of the project is not only demonstrated through specific figures, more importantly, the project, with the authorities, has promulgated policies related to the lighting industry. Specifically, the Law on Energy Efficiency and Conservation has two chapters mentioning energy efficient public lighting.

Previously, high efficiency lighting did not get much interest, was often integrated into other programs and did not have its own policy, but after Decree 79/2009/ND-CP was issued by the Prime Minister, it became the first important legal basis for the lighting industry of Vietnam to develop sustainably.

The Vietnam Energy Efficient Public Lighting project is funded by the Global Environment Fund (GEF) and associated by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, with the total budget of $ 15,318,000, including $ 3,000,000 funded by GEF. The project was implemented within 5 years on the national scale. This is one of the large scale technical assistance projects in Vietnam.

The development orientation of urban lighting in Vietnam to 2025 has been approved by the Government, which focuses in modern technologies, especially renewable energy, to improve the lighting industry of Vietnam and to save as much electricity as possible.

In particular, the project has developed and promulgated standards for high efficiency lighting; built a model to support businesses in developing high efficiency lighting products such as compact bulbs, two-capacity electronic ballasts, technologies of controlling different central systems for streets and alleys lighting, provided a number of laboratories for research, training and examination in the field of lighting.

So, it can be said that the project has successfully ended. How shall those achievements be continued?

This is also the issue that participants of the project concern about. The results of the project have been delivered to related ministries including the Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Vietnam Lighting Association. Now, the most important thing is to continue to develop those results, turn them into the community's common sense. This responsibility belongs to state agencies through the guiding documents system and monitoring mechanisms.

One of the most important factors contributing to the success of the project is the participation of enterprises. Do you have any initiative to encourage enterprises to invest in public projects?

Yes, in 5 recent years, enterprises have actively participated in the project. We can name some big brands like Rang Dong, Dien Quang in HCM city or lighting companies. The involvement of businesses in the demonstration component has contributed to raising public awareness of high efficiency lighting equipment.
The project focuses on saving energy for lighting areas. The question is how to make the lighting good and beautiful while saving energy. Funding sources for public lighting depend on the state capital, and since the capital is not enough, we have to raise financial resources from businesses. For enterprises to participate actively, we first have to prove that they can benefit. For this, the state has to issue reasonable policies and mechanisms.

Let’s take an example in China: all visitors of Huangpu River have to admire its beauty at night thanks to thousands of sparkling lights on both sides of the river. When we asked who paid for those fantastic lights, the answer was the tourist industry. In our country, after the project ends, we need to add more positive mechanisms so that high efficiency public lighting in particular and public projects in general are not only the mission of state agencies but also the rights and responsibilities of businesses and community.

At present, what mechanisms and policies do we have to facilitate businesses to enter the energy saving product market?

Law on Energy Efficiency and Conservation is an important legal basis to create favorable mechanisms for businesses to enter the market of energy saving products. In addition, the program of labeling energy efficient products has contributed to improving the competitiveness of enterprises in the market.

Joining the energy saving product market is an opportunity for domestic enterprises to promote the brand and expand the market. In fact, many domestic energy saving products are not inferior to foreign products in terms of design and quality, such as compact lamps, fluorescent lamps and recently Vietnamese Led.

In short, in my opinion, to achieve energy savings targets as proposed, following policies, mechanism and activities should focus on three key issues: supporting enterprises to improve product quality; providing information to consumers so that they can evaluate product quality through labeling programs and creating favorable conditions for enterprises to engage in projects to develop products.

By Minh Duc

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