Industrialists should adopt energy saving strategies - Consultant

by Anjana Samarasinghe

Sri Lanka is far behind in energy saving although some companies concentrate on energy conservation said Senior Consultant (Energy and Environment) of Small and Medium Enterprise Developers (SMED) Nimal Perera.

Energy conservation is a strategy that every industrialist should adopt. In any organisation the management and every single employee should adopt energy conservation measures.

Any company who concentrates on energy saving should adopt practices that can be implemented without investing money as their first step.

After adopting these practices companies can enter into energy conservation systems, which can be implemented by low or sometimes high cost investments, Perera said.

In countries like India even the Government is on energy conservation and they have formulated certain rules and regulations on this issue. The Sri Lankan Government also should promote energy conservation among industries by policy initiatives so that they gain more benefits, he said.

Industrialists should have the idea of how much of energy that they demand and out of them how much of energy is consumed for the manufacturing process. Comparison of energy generating and energy consuming is an important aspect for energy conservation, Perera said.

In 2003 SMED launched the Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction from Industry in Asia and the Pacific (GERIAP), with the assistance of United National Environmental Programme (UNEP), which aims to reduce greenhouse gasses by assisting companies to improve energy efficiency and reduce cost through Cleaner Production - Energy Efficiency (CP-EE).

CP-EE is a Win-Win strategy. It prevents or reduces wastes and emissions, minimises environmental impact which is attractive to business as it generates more profit to the companies.

Under this project, companies will have training on energy efficiency improvement and energy audits. It will also focus on providing guidance to develop energy efficiency inside the factory and SMED will audit company energy efficiency through their own equipments.

Perera said that they have conducted similar audits among large industries like cement, rubber, steel and tile industry in Sri Lanka and there were good responses from them.

SMED expects to introduce the project for other industries such as polythene extrusion, and leather industry as well.

The Hotel industry is also another sector that this strategy should be introduced, he said. SMED will establish help desks for energy conservation through the Federations' district and provincial chambers to assist business community in rural areas and hope to publish world and local statistics regarding energy efficiency in a website.

Through the GERIAP project, UNEP will soon launch a website in both English and Sinhala languages to provide tools of energy efficiency improvement.

As energy consumption increases day by day, countries like Sri Lanka shouldn't depend on hydropower. We should focus on other alternatives such as Coal, Dendro power and small hydro. Although coal power may cause problems for the environment there are proven CP strategies to prevent those.

Dendro power is an ideal solution to face the energy crisis in off grid rural areas and these provides ideal examples for Sustainable development he said.