Energy efficiency - Barriers remain

The workshop of "Promoting the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency in Vietnam" was held on November 21 in Hanoi by Centre of Green Innovation Development (Green ID) in ...

The workshop of "Promoting the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency in Vietnam" was held on November 21 in Hanoi by Centre of Green Innovation Development (Green ID) in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Living and Learning Centre for Environment and Community (Live and Learn), Centre of water Resources Development and Adaptation to Climate Change.

It was attended by energy experts from different organizations and  independent energy experts from domestic and abroad.

Speaking at the workshop, Dr. Nguyen Quoc Khanh, an experienced independent expert in the energy sector presented the report writing on the potential of energy efficiency in Vietnam.

The report showed the relationship between intensity of energy consumption and GDP per capita in many countries around the world. In particular, the group of countries with high GDP per capita, often have low level of energy intensity, or high energy efficiency and vice versa.

This correlation in Vietnam, however, does not follow the trend. As GDP per capita increases, the intensity of energy consumption didn't reduce but increase. According to Dr. Nguyen Quoc Khanh, energy efficiency in Vietnam is still much lower than its potential, mainly because it has not been planned.

The workshop also had a presentation on barriers to energy efficiency and development of renewable energy in Vietnam by Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan from the Institute of Energy.

This report indicates five barriers related to legal frameworks and policies; economics and finance; human resources; market and technique. Among them, according to Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, the incomplete legal documents are policy obstacles to energy efficiency.

Prices of many energy-saving devices are high, while the mechanism for enterprises to borrow capital for investing is complicated. Low domestic price of electricity is also economic and financial barriers. In addition, energy efficiency also encounters other problems, since human resources in the sector are weak and inadequate; public awareness of energy savings, as well as perceptions of business owners on the law of energy efficiency, is not high. Also, there is a lack of tools for precise measurement of energy consumption.

At the workshop, energy experts also discussed enthusiastically about the opportunities and solutions to remove these barriers. A number of solutions have been proposed, which include gathering recommendations from the sub-units to complete policies; listing the objectives and standards so that the business know what to do.