The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda), with the assistance of Japanese energy experts, has initiated a comprehensive programme for capacity building of the Energy Service Companies (ESCSs) in Pakistan. While addressing the concluding session of a two-day training workshop held at Smeda head office in this regard today, Muhammad Alamgir Chaudhry, Chief Executive Officer of Smeda said that most of the industrial sectors in Pakistan are energy intensive and are vulnerable to high rate of energy losses across various production processes resulting in higher energy bills and productivity losses.
This problem has significant financial impact and severely affects the competitiveness of SMEs, he said and lamented that the increased energy cost in different industrial sectors because of this problem ranges from 20 percent to 50 percent of total production cost.
He observed there was a little awareness and even less expertise available to counter this issue. That is why, sensing strong need for energy savings, skill development and adoption of best energy management practices, Smeda has initiated an Energy Efficiency Management Project (EEMP) in collaboration with Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) for Foundry and Auto Sectors, he said adding that in view of the significance of support structure for sustainability of any initiative, developing private sector as specialised Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) along with conducting Energy Audits (EA) and Implementing Energy Management Systems (EnMS) is key consideration of Smeda-JICA Project.
CEO Smeda further informed that jointly with the Japanese Experts Team, Smeda had selected several potential companies to enhance their capacities based on Japanese Energy Efficiency Tools and Methodology through a comprehensive program designed to effectively impart Japanese methodology and knowledge to local consultants and experts.
The program include capacity building through class room (theoretical) training followed by On-the-Job Training (OJT) and assigning projects to work in selected SME industrial units. Detailed orientation about the use of 18 latest Energy Measuring Equipments already procured by JICA for onward use in the selected SME units is also part of the program. Morihito TAKAYAMA, project team leader along with two other Japanese energy experts Hirobumi MATSUOKA and Norio FUKUSHIMA imparted the training to participating engineers. During the training detailed orientation was given on the use of energy measuring equipment.
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