Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has called upon the government to provide all possible support to industries for promoting energy efficiency in industrial processes, which will help in overcoming energy crisis.

Addressing a meeting of industrialists, Mr.Zahid Maqbool, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) said that Pakistan can significantly mitigate the adverse effects of energy crisis on industries if proper energy efficiency measures are adopted, particularly in textile and steel sectors.

He cited the example of Japan which has met the energy needs of its industry through efficient use and has not added any generation capacity since 1990. He said the same policy should be adopted by Pakistan.

Industrialists underlined the importance of launching an awareness campaign for energy efficiency methods in industries. They said they need government’s help in adopting efficient energy measures in industries as it would substantially cut their production cost. He said that industries are taking initiatives by their own but government’s technical support is required to make industries more energy efficient.

They said in today’s scenario of frequent price hike in POL products and power tariff as well as the big gap in demand and supply of electricity in Pakistan, it has become imperative to strive for promoting energy efficiency measures in industries which will improve productivity of industrial & manufacturing units. But without government’s active support, achieving these goals will be an uphill task, they added. 

Mr.Zahid Maqbool said improvements in efficiency, modernization, new capital investments on the generation side, altering the power station infrastructure to reduce distribution losses, modifying processes on the demand side to reduce the amount of electricity required in industry and changing industrial production processes are the measures which should be taken to improve energy efficiency.

He lauded the efforts of National Productivity Organization (NPO) which is contributing significantly in promoting energy efficiency practices in some industrial units by conducting energy audits. He said government should support NPO in its capacity building so that it could conduct energy audits in more industries and help them in improving their industrial processes for adopting energy efficiency practices.