On 20-21 November 2015, the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) participated in the 4^th Action Plan Working Group (4^th APWG) Meeting on Energy Efficiency Standards and Labelling (EE S&L) for Cambodia in Seoul, South Korea, as one of the major activities under the ASEAN+3 (ASEAN and People’s Republic of China, South Korea, Japan) Mitigation Cooperation Programme.  The APWGs are the realisation of the Programme’s EE policy consultation aimed to assist ASEAN Member States (AMS) in identifying its EE policy, legislation and implementation for Standards and Labelling, to compliment greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation efforts.  Among the AMS, Cambodia was selected as the pilot country, concurrently to support their soon-to-be-enacted Energy Conservation Law.

The previous APWG Meetings identified, among others; Cambodia’s existing standards, regulation, and testing centre.  They also set the Action Plan and a recommendation to establish institutional structure for labelling programme. Meanwhile, the 4^th APWG Meeting reviewed the proposed draft of EE regulation for refrigerators, and recommended capacity building activities for refrigerator appliance testing targeted to Cambodian engineers.

Discussion on the Draft of EE Regulation for Refrigerator. Credit: Korea Energy Agency

The ASEAN+3 Mitigation Cooperation Programme was supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) of South Korea, jointly implemented by the Korea Energy Agency (KEA) and ACE. In this programme, the Korea Refrigerator and Air-conditioning Assessment Center (KRAAC) acted as the consultant to share their expertise and experiences. ASEAN and South Korea have a good history of cooperation in the GHG mitigation efforts since 2009. Many activities have been conducted that contributed to the advancement of ASEAN energy goals and the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation.

(Photo caption: Dr. Sanjayan Velautham, ACE Executive Director and Mr. Gu Hongbin, CREEI Deputy Director General with the joint publication. Credit: EPC).