The Workshop ‘The Lower Mekong Initiative and ASEAN Connect– Supporting AC Policy Implementation and Market Surveillance’ has been conducted in Bangkok, Thailand on 23-24 January 2018.  The event was supported by the US Department of State, CLASP, EGAT Thailand and Ministry of Energy Thailand. The event was attended by governments, electricity utilities and industry (air conditioner/AC manufacturers) from Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam), plus Malaysia. The workshop aims to gain input from LMI countries about AC standard and labelling process as a basis to develop Market Surveillance Best Practice Guidebook.

First day of the workshop was divided into 3 sessions.  The first session discussed the updates on AC policies in LMI countries. This session provides the six ASEAN Member States with opportunity to share updates on energy efficiency (EE) policy for AC (status and/or political challenges of implementation), national policy roadmap implementation and other related projects to improve AC performance.  The second session discussed the role of certification and registration for AC. This session was conducted in working groups, where participants discussed different approaches and challenges and how different aspects of registration and certification should be addressed or outlined in the forthcoming market surveillance best practice guide. On this occasion, a study case of compliance framework from India was discussed. The third session discussed the role of market surveillance. This session was conducted in working groups, where participants discussed the approaches to select products for verification and testing stages.

The second day of the workshop was divided into discussion on market surveillance best practices guideline and then site visit in the afternoon. The morning session discussed what the guideline will cover and how the guideline will be used and applied in practice.  The site visit location was Electrical and Electronics Institute Laboratory, Thailand. During the site visit, participants were informed and shown about the AC standardisation process in Thailand. (MS. Featured photo credit:  ACE)