SAVE programme achieved energy-saving targets

What is SAVE Programme

SAVE or Sustainability Achieved via Energy Efficiency, is a program spearheaded by the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA), to improve energy efficiency in Malaysia through several initiatives.

I posted an article two years ago here pertaining to the SAVE Programme and it's benefit. SOGO, a departmental store in Kuala Lumpur saved about RM80,000 monthly in energy bill by replacing the chillers with energy-efficient type.

What is SAVE objectives

• To create a culture of efficient use of energy among general public and business entities.
• To save daily energy costs by consumers from reduced energy consumption and manage growth energy demand.
• To accelerate the transformation of consumer electrical appliances market and increase the share of Energy Efficient models in the market.
• As one of the initiatives to mitigate GHG emissions reduction.

Programme appraisal

Energy, Green Technology and Water ministry said that the programme has succeeded in achieving energy-saving targets. The ministry listed the followings as its achievement:-

• Cutting RM64.1 million of the overall cost for three electrical equipment – refrigerator , air conditioner and chiller.

• Since its commencement in 2011, efforts to encourage the use of the five-star rating energy-efficient equipment, had also saved 246.4 GigaWatt hours (GWh) of electricity.

• Emission of carbon dioxide has also been reduced by 167.6 million kg.

• Energy-efficient equipment market share as at Dec 31, 2012 (after  2-year implementation): 
40.8% for refrigerator,
21.6% air-conditioner, and
39.2% chiller

Original targets we're 25% for refrigerator, 20% for air-conditioner and 39% for chiller.

17 brands of air-conditioner and 16 brands of five-star refrigerator have entered the market after the programme was launched, compared to only 6 brands previously.


TheGreenMechanics: In this perspective, the Programme clearly achieve its objectives. Cool!

Are you one of the lucky buyers of the qualifying energy-efficient air-conditioners or refrigerators, and enjoyed RM200 rebates?



Source: BERNAMA 

China considering subsidies to develop energy-saving vehicles

There are many ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and one of them is through large scale use of energy-efficient vehicles. The impact of the intended reduction is made more significant if it is done in countries with the most number of vehicles. China is one of them and it is currently eying subsidy provision to develop energy-saving vehicles, together with the necessary infrastructures.

New stylish car charging station by GE Energy. Image: ge-energy.com

China's subsidy plan

Reuters cited a report by Shanghai Securities News last week that China is considering tax exemptions and subsidies for buyers of energy-saving vehicles in an attempt to boost its low-emissions auto sector. 

In 2009, Beijing introduced a similar stimulus package with tax incentives for cars with engine sizes of 1.6 liters or smaller and subsidies for rural residents. That move spurred car sales and helped China surpass the United States as the world's largest auto market.

Under the new proposal, those purchasing electric vehicles or hybrid cars would be exempt from a vehicle purchase tax, the paper said, citing Zhang Xiangmu, secretary of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The paper separately quoted a car association official saying that electric car buyers would also get a sales rebate as well as a reduction in the value-added tax. While plans to construct charging facilities for electric vehicles would support the country's demand for a raft of base metals, including copper.

The government said in May that it plans to spend up to 2 billion yuan ($315.06 million) from this year to help develop energy-saving vehicles to cut carbon emissions.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/19/us-china-cars-idUSBRE85I02J20120619


Malaysian car buyers incentive?

Not really a subsidy, but Malaysia government encourage the purchase of energy-saving cars - in particular hybrid vehicles - by exempting import duty and and excise tax for such vehicles. Unless there changes in the policy, this will be enforced until the end of 2013.

The Honda Insight has been upgraded for 2012. Image: blog.travelpod.com

As a result of the tax exemption, a 1.3 litre Honda Insight is marketed in Malaysia at RM99,800 and recently some adverts put a RM97,000 price tag (on the road). Toyota Prius has also seen the launch of a new 1.5 litre Prius C or known as Aqua in Japan, for the same price tag of RM97,000. From the consumers' perspective this is good as it gives options and promote improvement via competition.

Apart from that, there have not been many incentives for electric vehicles in Malaysia. National car manufacturer, Proton, has been talking about designing and producing electric cars for sometime now but the end result is yet to be seen.

ASEAN Energy Awards 2012

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Title: ASEAN Energy Efficient Building Competition and ASEAN Energy Management Competition

Organiser: ASEAN CENTRE FOR ENERGY
Coordinator: SEDA Malaysia
Invited:  Owners/managers of buildings and factories in Malaysia
Deadline: Report must be submitted before 11th April 2012

Who to Contact: Scroll to the bottom of this article, or visit SEDA Malaysia website.



The Competition is divided into five (5) categories, each of which are detailed in the following table:
(Note: Guidelines and Forms can be downloaded from here)

Interested Building Owners or Building & Factory Managers are invited to participate and report must be submitted BEFORE 11 April 2012 (Wednesday) at:

The AEA 2012- Secretariat

Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA Malaysia)

Galeria PjH, Aras 9, Jalan P4W,

Persiaran Perdana, Presint 4,

62100 Putrajaya, Malaysia.

Phone : +603-8870 6198 Fax : +603-8870 5900

Contact Person: Ms Sazlinda Ayu Arshad (ayu.arshad@seda.gov.my)

Further information on this competition can be obtained from http://www.aseanenergy.org

Italian Engineer invents floating solar panels

So you think that Solar PV would deprive you from building a house on your piece of land, or leaving you with no space for planting crops. Not necessarily.

Floating PV panels on the surface of  lake in  Colignola. Image: Daily Express, 28.2.2012

A creative engineer in Italy have recently come up with a cost-effective prototype of PV floating plant which tracts the sun and became a model of efficiency. 

Key benefits
 

1. Saving precious agricultural land

2. Less intrusive. Solves the ugly sight of traditional  installation in fields

3. Resolves panel overheating issues

4. Significantly cheaper than ground-based structure 

Specifications

Location: small lake of Colignola, Pisa, Tuscany Italy

Capacity: 30kW

Design: Floating Tracking Cooling Concentrator (FTCC)

Cooling method: lake water

Supply: 10 to 12 families (3kW per apartment)

Estimated cost: €1,600 per kW (RM6,500) including installation 

Colignola small-scale design would cost €48,000 (RM195,000)

Compared with ground-based system: Cheaper by some 20%

Note: 30kW capacity did not specifically mentioned kWp (kilowatt peak) but my bet is that it is 30kWp based on the installation size and the accompanying photo.

Interesting fact:

Sicily has about 75 km2 of artificial reservoirs and lakes. If 10% or 7.5km2 of that area is covered with floating PV panels, engineers believe that there would be 1 GW of power installed. 

To put things into perspective, Sabah's current energy maximum demand is slightly more than 700 MW. Think about harnessing solar energy from Sicily and power up Sabah with 300MW access capacity. This is no doubt suitable for lakes, reservoirs or abandoned quarries. Former Mamut copper mining in Ranau comes into mind.

The full Article by PVsolar-uk here:

pvsolarenergy.co.uk

Engineers in Italy have created a cost effective prototype for floating and rotating solar panels on the lake of Colignola. The engineers have also incorporated mirrors into the mix to harness the power of the sun more efficiently.

Marco Rosa-Clot, a professor at Florence University, has proudly announced they are revolutionising solar power and the flower-petal-like objects have already attracted alot of attention from international buyers.

These panels are said to resolve some of the issues your average panels on buildings or in fields are faced with. More conventional panels have been penalised for taking up valuable argricultural land, looking unsightly and losing energy through overheating.

The water keeps the panels cool, while the reflectors are positioned to utilise maximum power of the sun.

Engineer Raniero Cazzaniga has metioned that some people believe your more traditional installation is spoiling the landscape. He comments; "Our system is designed for low-lying quarries. The installation is only about a metre (three feet) high and usually you can't see it until you get to the water's edge. It is not at all intrusive," he said.

Rosa-Clot believes their project will allow a greater number of installations at a much more affordable price.

Flywheels

If you ever work in wood processing mill you’d be familiar with band-saws. The saws are attached to two big flywheels driven by AC motors. The wheels don’t need high initial torque to start rotating but once spinning, the band saw is capable of tearing apart even the biggest and hardest log.

Image: chinasawmills.com

Or, if you own a small diesel generator set – typically 5kVA to 10kVA – you’d be familiar with the tiring starting method. You need to spin a small but heavy flywheel to get the diesel engine going.

These are example of age old applications of flywheel. Let’s look at how flywheel is still relevant in today’s advance engineering. The following is an article I read from Daily Express:

What is a Flywheel?

A flywheel is a wheel that’s spun at high speed and used to store energy. They’ve been used for years in everything from traction engines to toy cars. But now Jaguar and Volvo want to see if they can be used to drive up fuel efficiency.

How would that work?

The car’s wheels would spin the flywheel, which would continue to spin until the stored energy was needed to drive the car. The stored energy would then be transferred back to the wheels via a transmission.

Are they currently used in cars?

Flywheels are an alternative to the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) most Formula 1 teams have been using last year. But although they’re permitted by the sport, no team currently uses them and neither are they found in road cars. F1 designers have worked on improving the technology but developing a flywheel is a headache; a great deal of stored energy can be lost to friction.

So what has changed?

F1 engineers have reduced the weight of flywheels using composite materials and cut friction by sealing the wheels inside a vacuum chamber. But it’s hard to make the seals between flywheel and transmission perfect. In F1, the seals only need to last for a short period of time. In road cars they need to be far more durable.

Is there a solution?

Engineering firm Ricardo has built a magnet-based system in which there’s no direct contact between flywheel and transmission. Jaguar is working with Ricardo and others on a flywheel, and Volvo is also looking into the technology for use in its vehicles.

Hope this will work towards energy efficient vehicles in the near future.

Source: Daily Express, Sunday Feb. 26, 2012

Energy Efficient Singapore

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In my previous postings It Pays to Go Green and 5-Star Appliances and Rebates for You, I mentioned rebates of up to RM200 for energy-efficient appliances.

For the time being these rebates are for air-conditioners and refrigerators with 5-Star labels. This is one of the steps taken by Malaysia government towards wider usage of household appliances with high efficiency.

For Malaysia, energy-efficient equipment requirement is voluntary.

Singapore is a step further. The city state has imposed standards for minimum energy performance (MEPS) and it is now mandatory for exporters and manufacturers, including Malaysia, to comply with new standards if they want to continue selling these products there.

Among the specifications in these standards are types of goods, cooling capacity (in kW), minimum coefficient of performance, adjusted volume and maximum annual energy consumption (in kW).

What does that mean to our many manufacturing companies and consumers in Malaysia? A handful, both negatives and positives:

1. Higher production cost, product differentiation between export quality and 'local use'. Expect lower efficiency for local market. Remember, our carrots (rebates) are based on voluntary participation from manufacturers.
2. Accelerated acceptance of green technology. Manufacturers will now have to innovate to produce goods that are more efficient but cheaper in order to stay competitive.
3. Malaysia will have to come up with MEPS sooner than later. This should fulfill the government's pledge to reduce carbon emission.
   

My opinion: Incentives are good, it helps in many instances and no doubt it can spur the advancement of green technology on to certain feel-good level. But couple with regulatory measures, the pace of such growth will certainly be better.

Read about the imposition of new standards here.

Buy 5-Star Appliances and get some Rebates for yourself

I recall my previous post in June 2011, titled It Pays to Go Green and very little information was available about the SAVE program back then.

I know this piece of info has since been updated by by the government for a while now but I'll mention it here anyway. 

The RM200 rebate for refrigerators and RM100 for air-conditioners is currently on going on a first-come-first-served basis.

If you are currently living in Sabah, the quota is 3,670 units (refrigerator) and 3,946 units (air-con). The biggest beneficiaries are those living in Selangor (17,315 and 11,601 units respectively). Not that many but if you are an early bird chances are you will benefit from this initiative.


HOW DO I QUALIFY?

This is the excerpt from a lengthy PDF document produced by the ministry. To qualify, the applicant must be:

i) a Malaysian, and
ii) a domestic electricity user. That's all!

a) Refrigerators:

• Peninsular Malaysia – domestic consumers using an average of 6 months electricity consumption between 200 to 400 kWh per month

• Sabah and Sarawak - open to all domestic consumers

b) Air conditioners – open to all domestic consumers in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.


You are entitled to the rebate only once for each appliance, and this is valid for purchase of 5-Star refrigerators and air conditioners approved by Energy Commission. So, look out for the following labels:



If RM200 is not of an issue to you (it is to me), than this is obviously not for you but please help me and our mother earth to spread the news. Energy efficient equipment use less energy to produce the same level of comfort and they definitely leave less carbon footprint.

For complete list of appliances (Brands) that qualify for the rebate, visit EE Appliance Listing. The recommended retail prices are quite competitive.

To view the detailed information on the SAVE program and how you can claim your rebate, take a look at the ministry's SAVE Program Guidelines For Consumers.

Buy 5-Star aircon/fridge, save some money + pay less monthly utility bill = help mother earth survive another day.


Happy Saving!

It pays to go Green

Do you have electricity supply at your area? If yes, chances are you have some air-conditioners and fridges at home, or at least any of these two. If that is the case, the next piece of information might be of interest to you.

According to Bernama, the consumers can expect to get some kind of rebates for the purchase of high efficiency refrigerators, air-conditioners and chillers.

It is a Government initiative to encourage the use of energy-efficient appliances and to improve energy efficiency in Malaysia. Qualified consumers get a rebate of RM200 for new refrigerator and RM100 for an air-cond. It is said to cost the Government more than RM50 mil. in 2011, so I recon it will be going on for some time.

Energy-efficient household items are substantially more expensive - 30% to 50% more - but the rebates and the electricity consumed  could well justify purchase of such appliances.

The financial benefit can be realised (or ROI if you like) within two to four years depending on the level of efficiency of the item concerned. It mentioned qualified  in the press release but did not elaborate on the criteria for an item, or a consumer to be deemed qualified. My guess is that the Government will come out with the details in July 2011 when it announce the rebate for chillers in the commercial sector.

Let support the initiative and help mother earth avoid a little carbon emission. At the some time helping ourselves patching some small holes in our pockets. Our family currently uses nominal efficiency (non energy-efficient) air-conditioners and refrigerators but would seriously consider the high efficiency variants when the current ones are due for replacement.


Source: Up to RM200 rebates for energy-efficient appliances