GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The En­er­gy Cham­ber has de­vel­oped an En­er­gy Ef­fi­cien­cy De­c­la­ra­tion, recog­nis­ing the role of en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy in de­vel­op­ing the econ­o­my and re­duc­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s green­house gas emis­sions.

To date, 11 com­pa­nies have pledged their com­mit­ment, but the en­er­gy Cham­ber hopes the de­c­la­ra­tion will be em­braced and adopt­ed by its mem­ber­ship and the wider na­tion.

In a state­ment is­sued by the Cham­ber, it not­ed that en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy was one of the im­me­di­ate and im­pact­ful ways of op­ti­mis­ing the use of T&T’s fi­nite nat­ur­al re­sources.

“En­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy mea­sures and ini­tia­tives will be cru­cial to the ini­tial re­duc­tion of green­house gas emis­sions. Get­ting the in­dus­try to best in class lev­els of ef­fi­cien­cy is the equiv­a­lent of un­lock­ing a mar­gin­al field’s worth of gas.

“While some op­tions may be more cost­ly than oth­ers, col­lab­o­ra­tion across the sec­tor presents op­por­tu­ni­ties to re­duce costs and iden­ti­fy op­por­tu­ni­ties,” the Cham­ber ex­plained.

The com­pa­nies which have al­ready ex­pressed their com­mit­ment to the En­er­gy Ef­fi­cien­cy De­c­la­ra­tion in­clude At­lantic, bpTT, BHP Trinidad and To­ba­go, Damus Ltd, EOG Re­sources Trinidad, Massy En­er­gy, Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd,The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Methanol Hold­ings (Trinidad) Ltd, Methanex Trinidad Ltd and Yara Trinidad Ltd.

The sig­na­to­ries to the De­c­la­ra­tion will en­deav­our to in­crease the lev­els of en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy and con­ser­va­tion in their fa­cil­i­ties, nat­ur­al gas util­i­sa­tion, elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion and elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion, and trans­porta­tion.

The Cham­ber added that the sig­na­to­ries to the De­c­la­ra­tion will al­so fur­ther com­mit to work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the En­er­gy Cham­ber, oth­er stake­hold­ers in the sec­tor and with the Gov­ern­ment and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

The Cham­ber said the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has iden­ti­fied im­prov­ing en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy as a cru­cial ob­jec­tive in meet­ing the dual chal­lenges of in­creas­ing de­mand for en­er­gy and com­bat­ing cli­mate change.