MLN: The board of directors of National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (NEECA) has approved a national energy efficiency and conservation policy.

In a meeting held on Thursday, they agreed on the launch of a national energy conservation awards scheme and the adoption of standard industrial classification codes by gas and electric utility companies, which would help in the identification of designated consumers.

While chairing the first board meeting of NEECA, Federal Minister for Energy, Syed Ali Zafar, stressed the importance of efficiency and conservation of energy and directed the participants to make concerted efforts to fully operationalise the department.

It was decided that new public buildings should have attributes of energy efficiency, which should be reflected in their PC-1 while the compliance mechanism for the construction of buildings should be according to the energy conservation codes/green building code.

Planning Commission has been directed to ensure quick adoption of relevant PC-1 revised formats for the construction of public buildings.

The Board of Directors also appreciated the successful initiative of Pakistan Energy Labeling Scheme of Fans and recommended similar initiative to be taken up on mandatory basis for refrigerators, Air Conditioners and LED Lights and mandatory Energy labeling to be adopted to promote energy efficient products.

Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) has been asked to conduct survey of aforementioned appliances from their accredited labs and recommend the energy efficiency levels for adoption.

The meeting was attended by Secretary Power, Mr. Rizwan Memon, Secretary Planning Division, Mr. Shoib Siddiqi and senior officials of Ministry of Petroleum, Ministry of Industries, Ministry of Climate Change, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Housing, OGRA and Designated Provincial Energy Efficiency departments.

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