ESPIRE to enable SMES to save 22,000 MW energy

LAHORE

A German development organisation "bfz gGmbH" and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) have initiated a joint project titled as "ESPIRE" that will enable local SMEs to save about 22,000 MW energy every year.

It was observed at a press conference jointly addressed by Yousaf Naseem Khokhar, Chief Executive Officer, SMEDA and Martin Straehle, International Project Coordinator, bfzGermany.

From SMEDA, Khurram Khan, GM-Central Support of SMEDA gave a briefing on SMEDA's services and project with a special focus on partnership with bfz gGmbH. From bfz, Mr. Martin was accompanied by Salahuddin Farrukh, National Project Manager, Muhammad Salman Butt, Project Manager for Punjab and Ahmer Butt, Project Manager for Sindh.

A presentation given by bfz officials revealed that s mall and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can save 9% of their energy costs with investments that pay back in less than 3 months. This is the average result achieved in 18 SMEs from textile, food processing and pharmaceutical sector in 2012 through energy saving measures implemented under project ESPIRE funded by German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via Sequa gGmbH, a bfz official said adding that the participating factories from Karachi , Lahore , Faisalabad and Sialkot together have realized energy savings of 22,000 MW per annum which corresponds to 53 Million PKR.

The energy services of the ESPIRE project shall be disseminated to150 factories until the end of the project in May 2014 and the selected factories would be supported to start making energy conservation part of their work routine by implementing Energy Management Systems to be introduced under the project.