2009 statistics from Ministry of Industry and Trade show that Vietnam’s rate of growth in electricity consumption was 2.45 times greater than GDP growth rate. Consumption in industry – construction sector accounted for about 38%, civil 36.8%, transportation 20%, the rest in service and agriculture.

Mr. Dang Vu Minh, Chairman of Committee for Science, Technology and Environment of

National Assembly: Law on energy efficiency is necessary and suitable both in the current

circumstances and in the future.

Despite depletion of energy sources resulting in increasing power shortage, energy use in Vietnam is still inefficient and wasteful due to outdated technology and limited awareness of energy saving. Such scenario has made the issue of using energy efficiently become highly imperative.

To encourage energy saving, Ministry of Industry and Trade has spent the last two years drafting the Law on energy efficiency and conservation, which was approved by 12th National Assembly on June 17th 2010.

Great efficiency from the energy saving

Shortage of initial capital, limited awareness among business managers and lack of reliable consultants are the biggest obstacles in implementing efficient energy usage and renovating technology.

Most businesses know about long term benefit from energy efficiency, but the cost of investing on energy efficient technology is still too high, especially at the moment when financial supports from government’s supporting programs are very limited. Using outdated equipments with low productivity and high energy consumption is the major cause of power waste.

However, there are cases when enterprises determine to update their equipments to save energy and have enjoyed substantial economic benefit, protect the environment and improve community’s awareness.

The goal of 8% energy saved proposed in “Researching plan for using energy efficiently in Vietnam” is not an easy one without a strict legal framework.

Forming an official law

After a long and hard time researching and analyzing energy usage in Vietnam, consulting energy saving law of other countries, a framework for the Law of economical and efficient energy usage has been formed.

With 85.8% of agreed on the total number of MPs (98.37% of the total 430 present reps),

on June 17th, Congress passed the Law.

The framework was then re-evaluated by experts, scientists, entrepreneurs and citizens in many workshops. Necessary modifications were added to form a Final Draft Law to present in the 6th meeting of 12th National Assembly. In the following meeting, the Law was approved with 12 Chapters, 48 Articles.

Importance of Energy efficiency labeling

The Law requires labeling products using energy efficient technology to encourage production of these products and gradually eliminate outdated equipment, reducing energy consumption in production. Such requirement is mandatory in an energy efficiency program, a key to the program’s success, improving performance of household electrical appliances up 2 – 3 times.

Labels will not only make it easier for customers to choose electrical appliances but also form a technical barrier against obsolete equipment with low energy efficiency. Product labeling has been very successful in many countries and regions, especially in the U.S. with the famous energy star label.

Professionally implementing energy efficiency program, Hanosimex has save

approximately 5 -7 billion dong a year.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Hiep, Head of Energy Efficiency Office (Ministry of Industry and Trade) said, energy labeling will be made mandatory in the future for some facilities and equipment with high energy consumption, starting from civil appliances such as lighting, fans, air-cons, refrigerators, power engines. Also, Energy efficiency labeling in Vietnam was mentioned in the action plan of ASEAN energy cooperation and the cooperation plans in 1999-2004 and 2004-2009.

Voluntary labeling of electronic appliances should be made before July 1st 2011. From then on labeling on these products will be made mandatory.

Industrial equipment (electric motors, small and medium-sized boilers, three-phase transformers, etc) should be labeled by January 1st, 2012; materials and accessories including insulation, glass, windows, roofing, sheet materials January 1st 2015.

The whole community should lend a hand

The implementation of the law will face certain difficulties due to its complexity and high technical specialization. Complementing the law, Decree on requirement details and implementation guides, and Decree of administrative violation sanctions have been drafted.

Technicians instructs representative of Women Organization in Ninh Binh how to use Biogas.

More detailed documents such as the circular of standards and norms for energy use in different fields are still needed.

In the implementing of the Law, there should be close coordination between the related ministries such as Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Information Communication, deployment of all the energy saving scheme within the framework of the national objectives program.

By Nguyen An