Schneider Electric’s pioneering in energy sustainability pursuit

Morgan Duarte, director of Schneider Electric IT Vietnam

According to Morgan Duarte, director of Schneider Electric IT Vietnam, the country is an attractive and high-potential market for the energy industry thanks to its strong economic growth, dynamic population, favourable government initiatives, and remarkable foreign investment flows. Additionally, the demand for clean, efficient, and sustainable energy will continuously witness a significant increase in the near future. “Companies in Vietnam are growing fast and every firm has a different need for energy and data centre usage,” said Duarte. “We have a considerable challenge here, in that the electricity supply cannot keep up with the roaring demand. As coal thermal projects continue to experience difficulties, Vietnam is betting on renewable energy sources such as solar or wind electricity.”

Duarte added that these issues could lead to higher costs for users and increase operating costs for companies. “As a result, there will be a higher demand for efficient energy management, not only for big corporations but also for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs),” he explained.

The energy sector is playing a critical role in the production infrastructure system. In the era of Industry 4.0, the development of energy has been an important driver of the country’s economic growth. Any nation’s level of development can be assessed through per capita energy consumption index, and in developed countries, energy consumption exceeds half of the total energy produced globally. Meanwhile, developing countries with a larger area and population size only consume about a third of that. In the near future, this distribution will be restructured due to the economic development of new emerging countries.

Efficient energy management ensures safety, availability, reliability, and connectivity at all times for equipment. It also prevents sudden and unexpected power outage situations, as well as monitors the status of surge protection in order to retain good performance of electronic devices and critical data.

“Thus, energy management is one of the business’ biggest competitive advantages nowadays,” said Duarte. “Companies can reduce operating costs and CO2 emissions, as well as develop their sustainability footprint.”

As the leading brand worldwide for integrated IT infrastructure and software, APC by Schneider Electric has continuously updated and kept up with the latest trends in the energy management sector.

“APC by Schneider Electric focuses on segments that are booming in Vietnam such as the cloud, finance, and manufacturing, along with penetrating potential markets such as healthcare, commercial buildings, and education,” added Duarte. “We want to accompany Vietnamese companies in the journey of reaching untapped markets or satisfy their rising needs of digital transformation.”

Recently, APC by Schneider Electric introduced Connected Smart-UPS to the Vietnamese market – the first cloud-enabled UPS for distributed IT environments. Combined with APC SmartConnect software, the integrated power management solution solves business problems related to resources and device management and monitoring.

Connected Smart-UPS delivers the power reliability, security, and certainty that SMEs need to stay connected to the technology and information that powers their business. APC SmartConnect software helps gather and send data about the health and status of a customer’s UPS devices including battery replacement, warranty renewal, and UPS performance notifications. In addition, it provides a secure, cloud-based web portal where customers can view the status of their UPS, accessible from any internet-connected device, and troubleshooting support through a remote monitoring interface.

As Duarte reaffirmed, “The launch of Connected Smart-UPS is proof of APC by Schneider Electric’s constant innovation efforts as a pioneer in developing sustainable energy in Vietnam.”

Modern manufacturing can be only developed thanks to the energy industry, and while sustainable energy results in significant changes in a number of other industries such as mechanics, manufacturing, and construction, more factors need to come into play for that development to come to fruition.

“The Vietnamese energy industry, especially in sustainable energy, is quite new but is rich with potential,” Duarte said. “It requires more effort from the government, investors, and the business community to ensure a proper and effective development strategy.”