The Ministry of Industry and Trade has implemented the Project “Promoting Investment Market for Energy Efficiency Industrial Sector in Vietnam”, funded by the Korean Government through Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). The project was designed to contribute to the elimination of identified barriers to promote the development of energy services companies and create a conducive environment for implementing energy efficiency investment projects, contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting the environment in Vietnam. The scope of this project is technical assistance and capacity building on ESCO business value chain which covering energy audit, feasibility study, financial planning, implementation supports and monitoring improvement. This project also supports Vietnamese ESCOs for pursuing actual energy efficiency investment of industries

RCEE – NIRAS has awarded to implement M&E Activities in terms of result-based performance management for the KOICA project “Promoting Investment Market for Energy Efficiency in Industrial Sector in Vietnam. The Consultant team were responsible to (i) conduct the baseline and end-line surveys of ESCO’s capacity on energy audit and financial planning and energy efficiency (EE) investment and (ii) monitor the process of consulting provided by the Korean specialist to Vietnamese ESCOs through continuous monitoring of the ESCO during the field trip.

This assignment aims to assess the impact of support from Korean specialist, though measuring the capacity of the Vietnamese ESCO in terms of energy audit and financial management of EE investment, before the support, during the process and after the project ends. The detailed objective of the assignment is to:

·         Establish a baseline on ESCO’s capacity which include establishment, development, operation, capacity and perspective of ESCO, identify and analyze the issues, problems and barriers which prevent the development of the energy efficiency service market;

·         During the project implementation phase, implement the monitoring process against the project performance indicators which are defined before;

·         After receiving the support from Project, a end-line project will be conduct to assess the impact of the project.

In order to better understand some issues and problems, the Consultant has carried out direct interviews with managers or/and technical team leaders of the selected ESCOs. Based on the information gathered, the Consultant has conducted comprehensive analysis of the received information and data from the survey, describing the main characteristics of the ESCO and its issues, problems, barriers and perspective in relationship with other market players. The comprehensive analysis  has discussed:

·   ESCO current status: experience, number of projects implemented/on pending/finished,

·   ESCO capacity on energy audit: pipeline of project, number of energy audit conducted, feedback of ESCO’s client, type of EE investment proposed, number of qualified staffs,

·   Analysis of ESCO’s capacity on energy audit

·   Key barriers to scaling up the energy efficiency service market

·   Enabling factors and policies

·   Recommended actions for supporting the development of ESCO