To better understand the above issue, the reporter of Industry and Trade Newspaper interviewed Mr. Trinh Quoc Vu - Deputy Director of the Department of Energy Saving and Sustainable Development (MOIT).
Mr. Trinh Quoc Vu - Deputy Director of Department of Energy Conservation and Sustainable Development of MOIT
Reporter: Sir, what challenges are electricity and energy saving posing for Vietnam in general and businesses in particular?
Mr. Trinh Quoc Vu:
Since the beginning of 2024, along with the strong recovery of the economy, reflected in the impressive growth indexes of production and export in the first quarter, electricity demand has increased dramatically, up to 11.84% compared to the first quarter of 2023. To ensure sufficient electricity supply and improve economic efficiency, promoting the implementation of electricity-saving solutions plays an important role.
On that basis, the MOIT has directed the People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities, corporations, and state-owned corporations to develop plans and promote the implementation of electricity saving by Directive No. 20/CT-TTg of the Prime Minister on enhancing electricity saving in the period 2023-2025 and following years; Promote the implementation of the National Program on economical and efficient use of energy for the period 2019-2030.
Reporter: So how do businesses know if they have environmentally friendly production and energy saving, sir?
Mr. Trinh Quoc Vu:
Guidance and propaganda activities for customers have been strongly implemented by MOIT and power industry in recent times.
The MOIT is the advisory agency for the Prime Minister to promulgate the National Program on electricity load demand management, including the demand response (DR) program. The MOIT has also directed Vietnam Electricity and Power Corporations to make agreements with large electricity customers to shift the peak capacity of electricity loads away from peak hours of the system, and agree to reduce peak capacity at times when the system is at risk of power shortage.
Reporter: According to the survey of the VNEEP3 Program, Vietnam's spare ground for energy saving is still very large, so what solutions will we have to further enhance energy-saving, especially in the industrial sector, sir?
Mr. Trinh Quoc Vu: According to the survey of the National Program on Economical and Efficient Energy Use for the period 2019-2030 (VNEEP3 Program), it shows that our country's energy-saving potential is still very large, especially in the industrial sector, which accounts for over 50% of total national energy consumption, the potential for energy savings can reach 20-30%.
Currently, the country has over 3,000 key energy facilities, with a total electricity consumption of over 80 billion kWh/year. If only these businesses join hands to save at least 2% of electricity consumption/year, on average, we will save about 1.6 billion kWh/year, equivalent to saving more than VND 3,200 billion in electricity bills; and if all the more than 30 million electricity customers practice saving electricity, the effect will be extremely great.
Previously, from the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024, the MOIT has directed and implemented very close solutions on electricity and energy savings and coordinated very closely with the People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities, and directed the Vietnam Electricity, the Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group, and the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) to strongly deploy electricity and energy saving solutions.
Reporter: Thank you!