Vietnam’s cost of production for a product is 1.5 times higher than other ASEAN countries. This has not only reduced Vietnamese goods’ competitiveness, but also increased the domestic pressure in energy consumption. To save unnecessary costs, improve Vietnamese goods’ competitiveness, power saving needs to be implemented from households. 

 Vo Minh Duc, Director of Thu Dau Mot Electricity (right) and Nguyen Van Dong, Vice-Chairman of Thu Dau Mot City’s People’s Committee signing regulations on “Cultural hamlet in power saving”

Small action, but great significance

Binh Duong has taken the lead among localities nationwide in socio-economic development with more than 99% of households in use of the national power grid and it has also led the whole country in power consumption with the annual growth of more than 30%.

For Ben Cat town and Bau Bang district only, total power consumption in 2011 reached 1.223 billion kWh, up 6.17% compared to 2010. The figure in 2012 increased to 1.504 billion kWh, up 22.96% compared to 2011. Despite the impacts of the global economic downturn, total power consumption of the two localities last year achieved 1.579 million kWh, up 4.98% compared to 2012. In the first four months of 2014, the figure was more than 465 million kWh of power, a year-on-year increase of 1.91%.

This has showed Binh Duong’s great potential in socio-economic development and robust growth in investment attraction. But, the demand for energy consumption from the development is also very great amid natural energy resources on depletion. This is actually a thorny problem that needs to be solved.

One of the most best and efficient measure for the above problem is power saving by the smallest actions such as turning off a light when not using it, switching off electrical appliances before leaving home or office…Nguyen Trung Thu, Deputy Director of Binh Duong Electricity Company said that the whole country saved 430 million kWh of power during the Earth Hour Campaign 2014. Of these, Binh Duong saved 42.2 million kWh of power or 9.79% of total. The province in the first four months of 2014 also saved 58.2 million kWh of power, equivalent to VND87.3bln or 30% of the year’s plan.

Forming up habits in power saving

Speaking at a ceremony to launch the 2014 program on “Cultural quarters, hamlets in power saving”, Tran Thu Thao, Vice-Chairwoman of Ben Cat town’s People’s Committee stressed: Power saving is to save money, contributing to protecting the environment and ensuring the national energy security. Ben Cat is now a locality on the momentum of strong industrial development with high power consumption while the capacity of power supply and distribution is limited. The most efficient measure is to respond to the power saving program by the most practical actions. Households should not use electrical appliances during peak hours and switch off unnecessary electrical appliances. Leaders of State agencies and businesses need to set examples in thrift practice and regularly remind their staff to raise high the spirit of power saving…

Meanwhile, Vo Minh Duc, Director of Thu Dau Mot Electricity said that around 700 households from 3 quarters took part in the city’s pilot program on “Cultural quarters, hamlets in power saving” with 61,613 kWh of power saved, equivalent to hundreds of millions of dong. In 2014, TDM city’s Electricity has continued expanding with more than 60,000 clients. The total output of power saved will be very great if the above good habit is maintained.

Nguyen Minh Son, Director of Ben Cat Electricity said: “To form up a good habit in power saving, we must regularly educate and raise family members’ awareness of this. This awareness will accompany us at workplace and be developed in the whole society”.

Reported by Duy Chi-Translated by K.T