In an effort to achieve more results from the National Target Program on Energy Conservation and Efficiency, in 2015, the program will focus on solutions to in-depth communication and stronger support for enterprises to bring about the best effects in energy efficiency. The Industry and Trade Newspaper journalist had an interview with Mr. Trinh Quoc Vu, Director of Department of Science, Technology and Energy Efficiency - The Energy General Department, Ministry of Industry and Trade - to discuss the issue.

Question: Could you reveal some achievements from energy saving in 2014?

In the past year, though the funding for the program is limited, the contents of the program have been closely adhered to and ensured with its specific planned objectives to be attained.

Specifically, for public awareness communication, many events were organized to attract the masses to participate in and respond to, such as the Earth Hour event in 2014 which attracted 63/63 provinces and cities across the country to participate; the National journalism award for energy efficiency attracted more than 500 papers across the country; The contest "The Building of energy efficiency" and "Energy management in industry and buildings" helped more than 800 energy efficiency solutions to be realized.

It is also in 2014 tjat the promotion of energy efficiency products, topics, reports on the energy efficiency solutions for industrial, commercial buildings and households were widespread in the mass media. The program supported the construction of biogas and solar water heater installation. The program also conducted the communication among pupils, students and trade unions in the Industry and trade sector through close coordination with the Central Youth Union and Vietnam Industry and Trade Unions. The entire contents of communication were delivered to attract the masses for participation and best performance.

For industrial enterprises, in 2014, the program supported more than 200 enterprises to perform energy audits and implement solutions offered by consulting units; assisted more than 100 enterprises to build the model of energy management in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Energy saving and efficiency and ISO 50001. The program has established the baseline of energy consumption in the industries of seafood processing, paper industry, and cement industry. In a special case, in 2014, the program was successful in its deployment of industrial-scaled water heater under the model of Energy Services Company (ESCO).

Activities in response to Earth Hour Campaign were held  in all 63 provinces and cities

The energy labeling program has achieved very encouraging results to help remove the poor energy efficiency products and create a routine habit for people in the use of high energy efficiency products. In particular, manufacturers and importers have to change the backward production lines, while they have various choices of options about energy efficiency in the imports.

These results will be an active contribution to the implementation of the overall objectives of the program and provide the basis for the classes of people and businesses to implement energy efficiency measures in the future.

Question: Which contents and solutions will the program focus on in order to attain greater efficiency in the future?

To be relevant, consistent, and more realistic, in the time to come, the program will focus on the followings: Firstly, the communication activities will focus on the energy efficiency solutions to the masses to perform energy conservation, energy efficiency programs with regular operation in social life. Secondly, the energy labeling program will be accelerated in its deployment, to focus on the finalization of technical standards for equipment and to promulgate those standards. The standards include the testing standards for certification of energy labels devices.

The energy labeling program has promoted the market for energy saving products 

The post audits shall also be deployed to ensure compliance of the units which participated in the energy labeling program. Thirdly, for the industrial enterprises, the program will focus on building bench marks and cost norms for some industries which consume a lot of energy, the plans and road maps for implementation of energy efficiency solutions for the industry, to help the industrial enterprises build models for economical, efficient and sustainable use of energy in the future. Fourthly, there will be start-up and operation of funds and financial mechanisms to promote investment in energy efficiency projects, such as mechanism for preferential lending, and energy services contracts (ESCO).

Question: Where could the new features of the programme be found in 2015?

2015 is the last year of the current National Target Program on energy saving and efficiency Phase 2, therefore, the program will focus more on assessing the effectiveness of the assignments given to the provinces, which focus on the key industries in the provinces. In addition, we will focus more on the preparation and issuance of policies on the economical and efficient use of energy in the province, in order to prepare the legal basis and sustainable action plan for the next phase.

Thank you!

By Do Trong Tan