Welcome Address by National Environment Agency Chief Executive Officer Andrew Tan at the Opening of the National Energy Efficiency Conference 2011

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan,
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources

Mr Pasquale Pistorio,
Honorary Chair and former Chief Executive Officer of STMicroelectronics

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning and welcome to the inaugural National Energy Efficiency Conference (NEEC) 2011, a key event under the National Energy Efficiency Partnership or EENP programme.

In April last year, NEA, EDB and EMA jointly launched the EENP programme with the objective of inculcating a Singapore corporate culture of continuous energy performance improvement to lower business costs and reduce our carbon footprint. NEA, EDB and EMA are co-organising this conference as part of our efforts to provide more opportunities for companies to learn about energy efficiency technologies, ideas and standards, share best practices and case studies, and to promote and enhance awareness of industrial energy efficiency.

Since we launched the EENP, our focus has been on promoting membership, developing our learning network activities and initiating benchmarking studies for various energy consuming sectors such as data centres, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. We are pleased that our EENP partners have taken advantage of the opportunities we have provided and benefited from interacting with local and international experts and specialists in energy efficiency. We will continue to develop our learning network activities with your support.

This year, we will also focus on promoting the adoption of energy management systems to our partners. We would like more of our partners to incorporate energy efficiency as part of their industrial practices, set in-house energy performance goals, develop plans to continuously improve energy efficiency and track performance over time. Overseas experiences suggest that companies, with structured systems and processes in place to manage energy can typically expect to reduce their energy consumption by at least 10 to 15 per cent during the first year of implementation of an energy management system, with many companies being able to achieve even larger reductions . Companies that already have an energy management system would also be better placed to meet the requirements of the upcoming Energy Conservation Act or ECA in 2013.

While this Conference is going on, the ASEAN Energy Efficiency & Conservation Sub-sector Network (EE&C-SSN) is holding its technical working group meeting in Singapore. Some of the delegates will be joining the Conference and the Awards Ceremony later today.

A new initiative of the Network is the ASEAN Energy Managers Accreditation Scheme or AEMAS, which is a training programme for energy managers in ASEAN. There is therefore much interest not just in Singapore, but also in the region for the training of energy managers to help drive energy performance in businesses.

Tonight also marks the inaugural EENP Awards Ceremony 2011. Among the EENP partners, many are pioneers in the field of energy efficiency, especially in energy management. Awards will be given out to companies and individuals who have shown exemplary performance and commitment in their energy management efforts.

Moving forward, we would like to have more participation from partners to help us steer our EENP activities and to co-design our programmes. We would like to reach out to all partners to volunteer your time and help us make EENP a successful programme.

I would also like to take the opportunity to welcome Mr Pasquale Pistorio, our distinguished keynote speaker, who many deem to be a pioneer in industrial energy and resource efficiency. Mr Pistorio will be sharing his insights and experiences in managing resource efficiency, including during his time in STMicroelectronics.

Finally, on behalf of the three organising agencies – NEA, EDB and EMA – I would like wish all of you a fruitful two days.

Thank you.

Source: National Environment Agency