The Hai Phong Equipment Manufacture and Shipbuilding Company Limited (LISEMCO), which used to be the Hai Phong Shipbuilding Factory), is an affiliate of the LILAMA Corporation under the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In 2009, LISEMCO underwent an energy audit to seek the best solutions for energy conservation.

The energy audit at LISEMCO was carried out by the Electrical Testing Center of Power Company 1 in the framework of the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Program.

Regarding LISEMCO’s strategy for energy use, Vu Ke Chuong, the deputy general director of the company, said, “In the production process the company consumes various kinds of fuel such as electricity, coal, diesel oil (DO), oxygen and gas. Previously the company applied some methods to manage energy consumption but did not yet achieve the desired results due to the lack of measuring equipment. We hope that the consultancy of energy experts from the Ministry of Industry and Trade will help LISEMCO use energy more effectively and reduce the production cost.”

The 2009 energy audit’s results show that the potential for energy conservation at LISEMCO is very high.

The auditors proposed four solutions that are believed to help LISEMCO save more than 213,000kWh of electricity, 38.5 tonnes of coal and considerable amounts of gas, petrol and diesel oil each year. It is estimated that the company has to invest about VND1.4 billion in these solutions which allow LISEMCO to save VND425 million each year, and it will take the company more than three years to recover the invested amount of money.

With staff members and workers totaling more than 2,000, the demand for use of clean water at LISEMCO is very high. Every year, the company has to spend about VND120 million to buy fuels, mostly coal, for use in boiling water and cooking. Using coal, water boiling and cooking activities make the surroundings hot and unpleasant, especially in summer.

Therefore, installing a solar water heater system is a suitable solution. It is estimated that this solution will help the company save 36.5 tonnes of coal and reduce the production cost by more than VND41 million each year.

Currently most lamps that are being used at LISEMCO such as 40W tube lamps, 1,000W Halogen lamps and high-voltage lamps with capacity of 250-500W have low lighting efficiency. These kinds of lamps consume too much electricity.

To improve the situation, the auditors proposed replacing the lamps that are being used with power saving lamps with the same light intensity such as compact T5-28W and Sodium 150W. This solution allows LISEMCO to save about VND36 million each year with estimated investment of VND100 million.

A large company of Hai Phong in the field of equipment manufacture and shipbuilding, LISEMCO uses cumbersome equipment items, including many kinds of bridge crane and gantry crane. Only a few cranes have an inverter while all the remaining cranes, which were manufactured in the former Soviet Union, are very old and consume too much electricity.

The auditors proposed installing inverters for all bridge cranes and gantry cranes. This solution requires LISEMCO to invest VND140 million but will allow it to save more than VND63 million each year. They said that this is an effective solution that LISEMCO should take for its long-term benefit.

Other solutions such as installing auxiliary meters, tightening management and setting energy consumption norms can help the company save about VND285 million each year. These solutions allow LISEMCO to better manage the use of energy and reduce energy consumption, which will pave the way for the company to apply energy conservation methods.

Thus far LISEMCO has successfully taken some simple solutions that require low investments. Tran Viet Khanh, the company’s general director, expressed the hope that in the time to come, LISEMCO will receive further technical and financial support from the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Program so that the company can use energy more effectively during the production process.

By Linh Tran