Nguyen Thanh Phong, head of sales at the HCM City Electricity Company, told a meeting attended by more than 20 businesses and organised by the HCM City Energy Conservation Centre (ECC)  on Wednesday (30 Sep 2009) that his company was working with ECC to open energy-conservation courses at Government offices and industrial parks.

More than 2,500 administrative agencies and 250 enterprises had benefited from such courses and seminars about energy conservation in the industrial sector, he said.

Industry and transport were the two sectors that use the most energy in the country, he said.

"Changing the public lighting in the city and encouraging citizens to use solar water heating systems and compact fluorescent bulbs have gone a long way in conserving electricity," he said, adding that in the first nine months this year, 156 million Kwh were saved.

Around 29 million Kwh were saved by installing 85,000 compact fluorescent bulbs and 300 solar water heating systems in houses.

By installing efficient lights on streets and other public places like parks and in hoardings, the company managed to reduce electricity consumption by half, he said. Government and other offices managed to save 48 million Kwh.

The amount of electricity saved has been rising sharply every year, he said, with 13 million Kwh in 2006,104 million Kwh in 2007, and 220 million Kwh last year.

At the seminar, businesses also spoke about the latest technologies to utilise renewable energy, which has yet to become a focus area in Viet Nam.

Huynh Kim Tuoc, head of the centre, told the opening ceremony that popularisation was one of the ways to encourage people to save electricity and turn to renewable sources like the wind and sun to power their daily needs.

HCM City tops the country in energy consumption. Expense for energy accounts for 15 per cent of the city’s GDP or VND13 trillion (USD727.7 million) for electricity. The country was a net importer of power and would also import coal in future though it was now an exporter, Tuoc predicted.

The Law on Energy Conservation, to be passed at the upcoming National Assembly session, would act to encourage businesses and people to adopt new technologies to save energy, he added.