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Commercial groups respond to power-saving calls
Hotels and office buildings which account for 40 percent of Ho Chi Minh City ’s electricity demand are beginning to respond to energy conservation calls.
Shopping mall Diamond Plaza is saving more than 4.5 million kWh or 30 percent of its needs after investing 1.5 billion VND (91,000 USD) in energy-saving devices like inverter VSD for its fans, lifts, and water pumps.
It can save over 6.5 billion VND a year.
Huynh Kim Tuoc, manager of the city’s Energy Saving Centre, said power-saving measures are being adopted by many major hotels, including Duxton, New World , Place, and Majestic.
“Electricity use by the hotels has been cut by 30 to 40 percent,” he said.
A recent study by his office showed that Continental Hotel can save over 1 billion VND per year if it installs energy-saving devices. Continental now pays up to 2.7 billion VND each year for electricity. Nearly 90 percent of it is used for air-conditioners, lamps, and water heaters. The hotel has also instructed its employees to follow certain measures to save energy.
Besides hundreds of hotels, HCM City also has around 16,000 office buildings.
A training class on power saving held in the city last month attracted 60 managers from the private sector,
“They were ready to pay 1 million VND each for the two-day class,” Tuoc said.
“We organised such workshop free of cost a few years ago, but they did not attract the attention of managers in public or private companies,” he said. “After sending invitations, we would receive no replies.”
Score of housing projects, apartment buildings and trading centres are nearing completion in HCM City . Many of these buildings will have floor areas of up to 10,000 sq.m and use over 2 million kWh of electricity a year.
Public offices consume 26 percent of the electricity in HCM City . The city is working on a plan to economise power consumption after conducting studies at 3,000 public offices.
The city also approved a recent proposal to cut the power supplied to these offices by 10 percent.
VNA
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