The nationwide Viet Nam Energy Efficiency Programme has achieved satisfactory results in the last five years, according to officials attending a seminar organisedOctober 30 in HCM City.

Trinh Quoc Vu, director of the Department of Science, Technology and Energy Efficiency under the General Department of Energy, said that between 2011 and 2015 the rate of energy savings was 5.96 per cent, while the national target set for the period was between five and eight percent.

One of the difficulties in carrying out the programme was increasing the awareness of people about energy savings. Today, more than 85 per cent of Vietnamese citizens know about energy savings, including technologies and investment funds.

Vu estimated that energy efficiency in the industrial sector, which consumers more energy than any other sector, has the potential to increase between 20 per cent and 30 per cent.

Industry takes up more than 46 per cent of the total energy consumption nationwide, while transportation consumes roughly 30 percent and the rest is divided between the service sector and household use.

In order to exploit the potential, the World Bank and the Ministry of Industry and Trade are working on a US$200 million project that will allow industrial enterprises to upgrade technology to save energy.

"It is expected that the project will be carried out in the first quarter next year," Vu said.

However, the project is just an initial step, because the capital demand for investing on energy savings in industry is huge.

The project will give priority to enterprises that consume high levels of energy, including cement, construction material, steel, paper, chemical, food processing and other sectors.

Huynh Kim Tuoc, director of HCM City Energy Conservation Centre, said HCM City's savings in the last five years had contributed greatly to the national energy savings.

"In 2011, to create US$1,000 GDP in the city, we had to use 203 kilos of oil. Now, five years later, the oil usage (equivalent to creation of $1,000) has fallen by eight per cent, a significant amount of energy saved," Tuoc said.

HCM City contributes 21 per cent of the city's GDP, which means the more energy HCM City saves, the better the country can reach its overall target.

This year, 952 enterprises in HCM City deployed solutions to save 43.4 million Kwh of electricity and 461,508 litres of oil a year.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade is creating a new programme on efficient energy usage that will be submitted to the government for approval. The target is to focus on solutions and energy efficiency models.

VNS