Reaching energy efficiency a great challenge in Vietnam

Award ceremony “Logo and Slogan Creation for Energy Saving” was organised on January 26

The energy saving movement has been heating up, driven by the “Logo and Slogan Creation for Energy Efficiency” programme which held its award ceremony on January 26.

To comply with the sustainable growth initiative, energy companies over the years have promoted themselves with plenty of related slogans such as Trung Nam Group with “Sustainable Investment – Building Up the Future”, TTC with “For the community, we grow,” or Sunseap's “Guaranteed Savings, Solar-Powered Energy Plans for Residential Customers”.

However, little action is done to materialise them. “Vietnam has always been one of the countries with the largest electricity consumption in East Asia,” said Franz Gerner, head of the Energy Department at the World Bank in Vietnam. Specifically, the annual average growth rate of the nation's electricity consumption is 8 per cent, higher than regional countries.

In a talk with VIR, Markus Bissel, project director at GIZ, said that industrial companies are focusing more on improving productivity than on energy efficiency: “They do not care about energy consumption.”

Industrialisation is the main reason behind this as Vietnam still depends heavily on manufacturing activities which contribute the largest portion of its electricity consumption. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), manufacturing activities last year were responsible for 16.7 per cent of the GDP, the biggest contribution among others, while the industry altogether occupies 47 per cent of the national electricity consumption.

Bissel said that to resolve the problem, energy service providers need to show industrial companies the potential in energy efficiency: “Once they trust in the measures you recommend, then they will implement it.”