From left: Power and Energy Ministry Deputy Director General Strategy Harsha Wickramasinghe, National Engineering Research and Development Centre of Sri Lanka Director General D.D. Ananda Namal, Consumer Products Ltd Director Abdul Zubair, Sadam Ameer of Green Building Council, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand Assistant Director Parichart Sangsuwan and Mex Exhibitions (Pvt.) Ltd Director Gaurav Juneja

By Zahara Zuhair
As eco-friendly products are playing an important role in making a greener world, experts of the energy industry recently expressed the need for standardised energy products and emphasised the importance of having an effective method to dispose the waste.

It was expressed at the ‘Thailand Energy Saving Week 2016’ forum held in Colombo, which was aimed at helping companies to move into the energy-efficient market.

“I think we need to have a better understanding with the government as well as the stakeholders to implement it and make it operative,” stressed Hayleys Consumer Products Ltd Director Abdul Zubair.
“LED is coming to the market; it is bound to create a lot of waste, which is a major environmental hazard. The need for standards is very important. So we must push it harder to implement it as fast as possible,” he said.

“Every product doesn’t give what is promised in return; that is a big problem. Three years ago, LED started coming to Sri Lanka in a big way. But the products didn’t work as they promised. So it took people away for a while,” he pointed out.

Commenting on LEDs as an energy-saving sector, he noted that the transition of LED was much more rapid than CFL and Florescent.

He added that they were looking at LED solutions as they had initiated few plans in Sri Lanka.
During the discussion it was highlighted that there was a demand and awareness in Sri Lanka for LED and energy-savings products. 

“Our government really has appreciated that fact as most of the street lamps today in Colombo are LEDs - also outside Colombo. Actually the urge for energy efficiency has come. That is a good sign,” Zubair said.

“Today a lot of industries in Sri Lanka are moving to LEDs. There is a lot of funding coming for energy efficiency in Sri Lanka. If you see over the last one and half years or so, the migration of LED has been far greater,” he further added.

Elaborating on future lightning and energy industry for smart and intelligent lightning, Zubair said, when it comes to smart lightning, Sri Lanka had not seen that much of products in the market. Accordingly, he said they would be introducing such products to the market as there was a huge demand for it. 

“We think it will catch up pretty fast because most of the green buildings are going for smart technology,” he said adding that intelligent lightning was not been used in Sri Lanka at 
the moment.

It was also noted that since there was no restriction implemented yet for import of Chinese or other such products there should be some kind of regulations imposed for the organisations that import 
those products.
Pic by Kushan Pathiraja