The third Steering Committee Meeting of the Project “Promoting the energy efficient industrial boilers, adoption and operating practices in Vietnam” was organized at the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) Headquarter on 15th January 2019.

The Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting aims to report on the progress of Project implementation in 2018 and to seek the PSC’s approval for the Project Workplan in 2019 as well as feedback from the Steering Committee members regarding issues of project management and implementation, especially the extension of the Project.

Attending the meeting, there were 15 members of the Project Steering Committee from related ministries/organizations such as Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Labor – Invalids and Social Affairs, Directorate for Standard, Metrology and Quality, Energy conservation centers from Hanoi and Da Nang as well as representatives of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vietnam and Headquarters.

By the end of 2018, the project has been implemented for more than 03 years. With the efforts of the Project Management Unit and the strong guidance of the Department of Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Development and UNIDO, during 2018 the project has successfully carried out many activities and achieved the following outputs/results:

• Completed the final version of revised National Standard – TCVN 7704:2007: Boiler – Technical Requirements for Design, Structure, Manufacturing, Installation, Operation and Maintenance as well as the final version of revised National Standard – TCVN 8630:2010: Boilers – Energy Efficiency and Test Methods; Completed the industrial boiler database system and report on data collection analysis completed.
• Organized 04 training courses on best operating practices of industrial boilers; Organized 02 training courses boiler efficiency evaluation techniques for national experts and industrial enterprises in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City; Provided backup to 15 teams of national experts to do practical works on boiler efficiency evaluation at 15 selected industrial enterprises; Purchased the software to support the energy efficiency boiler design and conducted training course on software usage efficiency in Hanoi with the participation of boiler designers from local manufacturers.
• Provided the technical assistance to evaluate boiler efficiency at 37 industrial enterprises; Direct technical assistance on 23 projects on boiler performance improvement at 23 enterprises; Providing consultancy to support the implementation of 11 projects to replace old boilers with new ones; Selecting 17 other enterprises to register for boiler efficiency assessment and pledging to implement boiler efficiency improvement projects and 2 enterprises to commit to replace boilers.
• Provided technical assistance in the implementation of boiler efficiency evaluations of 37 industrial enterprises; provided the technical assistance in the implementation of 23 boiler efficiency improvement projects at 23 industrial enterprises; provided the technical consultancy in the implementation of 11 energy efficient boiler replacement projects.

In general, most of the targets of Component 1 set out in the Work-plan 2018 of the project have been completed. Regarding Component 2 of the project, all activities of the component have been achieved as planned in the project annual work-plan 2018. The implementation of activities of Component 2 during year 2018, overall, resulted in meeting or over achieving setting target outputs in the project work-plan Year 2018 as well as significantly contributed to achieve the project targets such as the number of boiler efficiency improvement projects and boiler replacement projects implemented under Component 3. All activities of Component 3 have been implemented in accordance with the timetable set out in the project work-plan 2018. However, the delay in implementing of demonstration projects on boiler efficiency improvement project as well as boiler replacement projects during 2017 has led to the overall progress of achieving the project targets such as the number of boiler efficiency improvement and boiler replacement projects implemented was behind the overall progress of the project for about 6 months.

After the presentation of the project implementation progress in 2018 and the 2019 work plan of the Project Management Unit representative, the Steering Committee members had many comments and provide specific feedback directly to project implementation as well as recommendations on a number of activities that need to be focused and speed up the implementation in 2019. The following are specific instructions/summary that were given by Ms. Nguyen Thi Lam Giang, chairperson of the Steering Committee:

• Firstly, as a general assessment, the project plan of 2018 has been well implemented, achieving the set targets with high disbursement rates expressed in the figures and data in the report. Regarding the cumulative progress from the beginning to the present, please assessing the unachieved indicators at some level in order to have fully information for 2019 work-plan development.
• Secondly, regarding the project work-plan for year 2019, it is recommended that the Project Coordinator to develop two scenarios: (i) the project will be closed on-time by November 2019 as mentioned in the project document; (ii) the project will be extended to be closed by May 2020. For two these scenarios, please provide the assessment of level of target achievement, including the analysis of difficulties and advantages of the project implementation for each scenario.
• Thirdly, on the sustainability of the Industrial Boiler Database, the Project is requested to have a technical working session with the Department of Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Development on the current status and future maintaining of this Database.
• Fourthly, in 2019, communication activities such as television programs are proposed to be implemented soon. The project should coordinate with the Department of Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Development to promote the products/outputs and effectiveness of the Project in other communication programs of MOIT and the Department of Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Development.
• Fifthly, regarding the extension of the project, after completing the revision of the 2018 Implementation Progress Report and the revision of 2019 work-plan, the project extension will be sent to Project Steering Committee again for their endorsement