The Energy Management Commission is in the process of implementing the Energy Management Regulations 2012 which were gazette on 28th September 2012 under legal notice N0.102. The regulations are meant to assist in the implementation of sections 103,104 and 105 of Energy Act 2006, which deals with energy efficiency and conservation.
The Energy Regulations 2012 require among other things that:
· Energy Regulations Commission to designate facilities in terms of their energy consumption for the purpose of energy efficiency and conservation
· All designated facilities to carry out energy audits after every three years, and have an in house Energy officer to monitor and implement the recommendation of the auditors.
· All designated facilities to implement at least 50% of all recommendations of the energy audits
· Only licensed energy auditors and audit firms shall be required to do audits.
It is on this background that the Secretariat and a few members attended a stakeholder’s forum on 1st November 2013. Members are therefore requested to purchase or familiarize themselves with these regulations as majority of the hotels fall under the industries identified for audits to enable them be ready for the audits. However the question of the capacity of ERC to conduct the audits still comes to the fore, as there are only 16 approved energy auditors in the country.
Following the stakeholders forum, we were further invited to a forum on the development of energy auditors training curriculum. The stakeholders felt that the curriculum to be applied needs to incorporate the current existing curriculums by Universities and KAM to avoid reinventing the wheel.
We shall keep you updated on any new developments in this matter, however we urge you to familiarize yourselves with this regulations.