The Malaysian Industrial Energy Efficiency Improvement Project expands its audit activities to the Plastic, Textile and Oleochemical Sectors

Having successfully completed 48 energy audits (EA) in eight energy intensive manufacturing sectors, the Malaysian Industrial Energy Efficiency Improvement Project (MIEEIP) has now gone on further to implement EAs in 3 additional sectors namely the plastic, textile and oleochemical industries.

The oleochemical sector was the first to benefit from the MIEEIP EA when 2 experts from the Energy Conservation Centre of Japan (ECCJ) were mobilized to conduct the EAs together with the MIEEIP team in September this year. The ECCJ was established by the Japanese Government as its nation's principal organization for implementing energy related programmes on a comprehensive basis . The ECCJ has been helping selected Malaysian industries through energy conservation programmes since 1996. To date, ECCJ has conducted energy conservation programmes in the food, ceramic, textile and rubber industries. These programmes were funded under the Green Aid Plan (GAP) with aims to reduce barriers that hinder the efficient use of energy in Malaysian industries.

The two factories which participated in the MIEEIP EA programme include Pan Century Oleochemical and Akzo Nobel Oleochemicals which are located in Pasir Gudang, Johor. Generally, the experts found the factories to be at par with their counterparts in Japan . However, a more detailed report will be provided to these companies sometime end of November this year.

As the MIEEIP is also continually looking into ways and means of developing the capacity of local Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) in the area of EA , a mechanism was developed by the team to subcontract the EAs in the plastic and textile sectors to ESCOs. Eight ESCOs were selected and matched to carry out the EAs in pairs for the four factories identified. These ESCOs are now in various stages of conducting the EAs .

With the conclusion of the audits in the oleochemical sector, the MIEEIP team together with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) will be conducting a seminar on 1 st December, 2005 . The objective of this seminar is mainly to disseminate information on the application and benefits of energy efficiency technologies in local industrial settings and promote industry participation in the energy use benchmarking programme. We at PTM believe that the consultants' presentations will provide much insight to the participants who attend this upcoming seminar in November.