Energy audit is an extremely necessary activity to contribute to ensuring the economical and efficient use of energy. Viewed from the perspective of an consulting agency with many years of experience in conducting energy audit, the article outlines the advantages and disadvantages for energy users and energy audit consultants. On that basis, some recommendations and solutions have been proposed for stakeholders in this field.

Energy is one of the very important factors contributing to the socio-economic development of our country. The increasing trend of energy consumption in production, business and community activities has raised two major energy issues.

Firstly, energy sources, especially fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, are becoming increasingly depleted.

Secondly, the use of energy sources has released a huge amount of emissions into the environment, resulting to serious pollution, causing the greenhouse effect, making climate change increasingly obvious.

Therefore, Vietnam as well as many countries in the world have had specific policies and measures to exploit and use energy economically and efficiently, reduce the use of fossil energy sources, encourage the development and usage of renewable energy sources such as solar, geothermal, wind energy, etc.

The Law on Economical and Efficient Use of Energy (Law No. 50/2010/QH12, passed by the 12th National Assembly on June 28, 2010, effective since 2011) has stipulated the following contents: policies and measures to promote economical and efficient use of energy; rights, obligations and responsibilities of organizations, households and individuals in economical and efficient use of energy. On that basis, activities on economical and efficient use of energy are promoted, especially energy audit activities for energy users.

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“According to the Law on Economical and Efficient Use of Energy, an energy audit is an activity of surveying, measuring, analyzing, calculating and evaluating to determine energy consumption, energy saving potential, propose solutions for economical and efficient use of energy for energy users without affecting the output of the unit.”

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Currently, every year hundreds of energy audit reports are made, which is an important basis for businesses to deploy energy saving solutions, improve energy use status at their units. The main force performing the energy audit are the Centers of Industry Promotion and Consulting for Industrial Development, Organizations of Energy Saving Consulting and Services of all economic sectors operating under the Law on Enterprises.

Energy audit is a type of conditional business regulated by law. The following are the advantages and disadvantages in implementing energy conservation at key energy users from the perspective of the Vietnam Technology Solution JSC (VETS).

For energy users

- There are management and operation staffs with high expertise and long-term experience in using the equipment system at the enterprise.

- There is a full management and monitoring system or a team to regularly collect data, pay attention to the energy consumption status.

- There is a team of technical staff with a spirit of learning, giving ideas and solutions that can be implemented for the plant in terms of energy saving.

- All officers and employees in the enterprise have a sense to operate and efficiently use of energy.

- There is difficulty in finding and selecting a consulting organization with sufficient capacity and experience in implementing energy audit.

- The energy conservation solutions proposed in many reports are still theoretical, not really consistent with the current status of the enterprise, leading to the fact that the enterprise does not really receive the benefits brought by energy audit.

Energy Auditors going on a field trip at Hoa Binh hydropower plant (Vets-2021)

For consulting units/organizations

- The production technology and production management tools of the factories are more and more modern, with a full measurement and monitoring system, providing a rich source of data for the energy auditors to make assessments;

- The awareness of key energy users about the benefits of energy audit is increasing, more enterprises are really interested in economical and efficient use of energy.

- The competition on service prices causes many difficulties for consulting units in providing energy audit services with high quality.

- There is a lack of intensive training courses on energy efficiency in different fields, leading to difficulties in improving the quality of energy efficiency work;

- The consulting units face many difficulties in arranging finance to equip the system of measuring and testing equipment with increasingly high accuracy requirements for energy audit.

As a consulting unit with nearly 15 years of experience in the field of economical and efficient use of energy, especially in energy audit, VETS (Vietnam Technology Solutions Joint Stock Company) has perfected its own energy audit procedure to ensure providing customers with good quality energy audit services, meeting the requirements of law.

The first thing when starting an energy audit project is to gather information and learn about the enterrprise that needs energy audit. Then, it should focus on evaluating systems with large power consumption and high energy saving potential. After having the data, VETS will conduct a survey of the entire factory, from which the energy audit team can identify potential systems, sometimes evaluate and provide preliminary solutions for the factory’s systems. After the survey, the energy audit team will select a measuring point and start testing. During the test, it is necessary to regularly monitor the status of the equipment as well as the measurement chart on the test machine (if any) to assess the causes of changes in the operation of the equipment. At the end of the testing process, it is necessary to analyze, evaluate and compare the collected data. In addition, it is necessary to compare with the technology of domestic companies in the same production sector as well as compare with foreign technology to be able offerring optimal and suitable solutions for the enterprise’s condition.

Besides, in order to improve the quality of energy audit services as well as support energy users, state management agencies need to promote activities in this field.

a) For central management agencies, it is necessary to promote activities to help improve the capacity of consultants by:

- Regularly updating and improving the training program for Energy Auditors (EAs) and Energy Managers (EMs).

- Building a database system on certified energy auditors and energy managers.

- Updating state regulations on energy audit activities in accordance with the change of actual situation.

b) For local state management agencies, especially the Departments of Industry and Trade:

- Promoting inspection and review of the quality of energy audit reports submitted in accordance with the specific guidance of Circular 25/2020/TT-BCT.

- Regularly organizing annual training courses for energy managers at large energy users in localities to introduce and update new state regulations in the field of economical and efficient use of energy, also introduce new procedures and technologies on energy saving for the enterprises.

- Sending professional staff to periodically participate in intensive training courses to improve the capacity of management offcers to ensure expertise quality in evaluating the results of energy audit reports.

          In order to achieve good results and bring benefits to businesses, the performance of energy audit requires the active participation of all related parties such as energy users, consulting units as well as state management agencies./.

MSc. Hoang Hai, Vets

& Vietnam Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency Association

References:

1) Law on Economical and Efficient Use of Energy (Law No.: 50/2010/QH12 promulgated on June 17, 2010, effective from January 1, 2011)

2) Decree No. 21/2011/ND-CP dated March 29, 2011 of the Government detailing and implementing measures for the Law on Economical and Efficient Use of Energy.

3) Circular 25/2020/TT-BCT dated September 29, 2020 of the Ministry of Industry and Trade providing for the planning and reporting on the implementation of the plan for economical and efficient use of energy; perform an energy audit.