Experience of energy performance contracting in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has experienced an average annual growth in final energy consumption of 4.7 per cent over the last ten years. An initiative being undertaken by a small number of government and commercial organisations is to limit their own consumption of electricity through performance contracting. Performance contracting is essentially a partnering process, where a client organisation partners with an energy management firm to identify and achieve energy savings for the client organisation. The research undertaken for this project has identified a number of factors that are considered to affect the success of performance contracting in Hong Kong. In a survey of practitioners, who have experience of performance contracting, some of the key benefits of this approach identified include the fact that there are substantial energy cost savings to be made. These savings are guaranteed by the partnering energy saving company and there are overall improved operational and plant efficiency gains. Key requirements for the success of such schemes include the setting-up of an agreed energy baseline against which to measure results and human factors such as commitment to the enterprise at all levels of the organisation and trust between the co-operating organisations. The paper expands the discussion on the benefits, obstacles and necessary ingredients for performance contracting that are likely to be applicable not just to Hong Kong but to the successful implementation of any such scheme.