SINGAPORE - At St. Andrew's Junior College, the air-conditioning in its lecture theatres and several classrooms can be switched off by its operations manager without him taking a step out of the general office.
That is because a mobile application developed by the school tells its user whether the room is occupied, and allows him to switch the air-con off with a click of a button.
This simple, yet effective, effort, combined with the replacement of more than 100 of its old air-con units with energy-efficient ones as well as the use of LED lighting, has helped the school reduce its annual electricity consumption by 12.1 per cent between 2013 and last year.
On Tuesday (Oct 4), the school was among 17 organisations and individuals awarded for their efforts to save energy at the sixth Energy Efficiency National Partnership (EENP) Award, held at the Devan Nair Institute for Employment and Employability in Jurong.
Other winners include electronics manufacturer Molex Singapore, which is able to save $1.29 million in annual energy usage due to its energy-saving measures such as a system that can ramp up and down the energy supplied according to demand.
The Singapore Management University, by installing 200 power meters that monitor energy consumption and 700 motion sensors in its rooms and walkways, has been able to reduce energy consumption by 33 per cent and save $2 million worth of energy over the last nine years.
Both organisations were awarded under the Excellence in Energy Management category.
Mr Eric Leung, 62, from ASM Pacific Technology, an assembly and packaging equipment supplier, and Mr Mohamed Shahril Jaffar, 47, from consumer-electronics giant Panasonic, were both awarded for being outstanding energy managers.
Both have spearheaded energy-saving initiatives within their companies, with Mr Mohamed Shahril also organising annual student visits where participants learn about things like waste water treatment.
"Seeing how curious they are when they ask questions motivates me to continue pushing for greater energy efficiency," he said.
In his speech, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli noted that while 168 energy-intensive companies submitted energy efficiency improvement plans in 2014 and 2015, the actual improvement rate have so far fallen short of their targets.
The companies targeted improvements rates of 0.76 per cent in 2014 but the actual improvement rate was just 0.42 per cent.
"There is room to improve our energy efficiency collectively," he said, making comparisons to Belgium and the Netherlands - countries which achieve industrial energy efficiency improvement rates of 1 to 2 per cent annually.
He added that the National Environment Agency has been consulting the industry on the adoption of enhanced energy management practices including regular assessments to identify energy saving opportunities, as well as planning to introducing minimum energy performance standards for common industrial equipment and systems like motors and cooling systems.
