In earlier September, in Dong Thap, representatives of the Center for Industrial Promotion & Consultancy Development reported and discussed the results of energy audit for businesses in the province. This is the program following the national energy policy which has been supported by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in some Southern provinces and cities (called ANEP 2).

Co May Private Enterprise is a relatively large aquatic product manufacturing and processing facility in the province. Annually, the company has the output of about 80,000 tons of product, consumes more than 6 million kWh of electricity and nearly 7000 tons of coal.

After nearly 10 years of operation, equipment and machinery have been gradually degraded and had low efficiency. The company has been unable to build and manage energy consumption norm for each product and had no energy efficiency officials.

Therefore after receiving the support in terms of survey, measurement and evaluation of energy consumption of the whole factory, the company has realized that some machinery and equipment in some areas, through the process of production, have deteriorated and consumed much energy.

According to the energy audit report, seven energy saving solutions have been proposed. The investment cost for these solutions is VND0.8 billion, but the company could save about VND1.83 billion annually, so the payback period of these solutions is less than a year, equivalent to saving approximately 379 tons of oil equivalent (TOE).

The proposed energy saving measures are very specific. For energy management, the company should cut the power of the standby 750 kVA transformer (not in use) to avoid no-load losses. For the lighting system, electromagnetic T10-balast lights are replaced by electronic T8-balast lights, additional switch installed for each set of light to reduce 50% of lights (which are not necessary in a number of areas).

With large capacity machines, the company has installed inverters for sucking fans, air supplying fans and boiler exhaust sucking fans, soft starters for grinders.  In the boiler system, waste heat is recovered to reuse for production, condensed water recovery pipelines and steam distributing vessels; air flow into the boiler is adjusted to avoid energy loss.

Especially, after implementing energy audit, the business has entered into an agreement with the equipment supplier to apply solutions in the form of sharing profit from energy efficiency (referred to as ESCO). Therefore, initial investment costs will not be the concern of the company, but of the equipment supplier.

Among solutions mentioned above, there is a solution which requires low investment cost but has huge saving potential, it is to improve the boiler system in the factory. This solution requires the investment cost of about VND500 million, but could save VND1.5 billion per year, so the payback period is only 4 months.

Through the experience of Co May company, it can be said that the energy saving potential in enterprises is still very large. Energy conservation not only promotes energy efficiency, increases competitiveness for enterprises but also is one of the goals of the energy efficiency program which the Ministry of Industry and Trade has deployed in the province of Dong Thap.

By Duc Minh