Díaz-Canel: Cuba goes for rational and efficient use of energy

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 4 (ACN) Cuba goes for the rational and efficient use of energy, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, President of the Republic, wrote on Twitter.

The president posted a link to a journalistic work published by the Juventud Rebelde newspaper.

An interview with the general director of the National Office for the Control of Rational Use of Energy (Onure), Elaine Moreno, published by the newspaper, in which she affirms that Cuba plans the consumption of its energy carriers, electricity, diesel and gasoline according to the requirements of its production of goods and services, but the arrival of the COVID-19 brought unexpected changes.

In statements to Cuba International magazine, which publishes Prensa Latina, she explained that since 2018, the country's energy consumption behaves in a similar way, although last March the pandemic practically paralyzed the national economic scheme and increased even more in the residential area.

Faced with this challenge, the country bet on greater efficiency in the production of goods and services, which allowed for a reduction in consumption and the displacement of savings to the residential sector to avoid affecting the population, he said.

She recalled that Cuba has an economy mainly based on services, therefore, the biggest electric consumption is generated in tourism, hydraulic resources and in the industrial area: steelworks, sugar factory and other entities.

For 2021, the strategy will be focused on maintaining the work system executed on the basis of Decree-Law 345 approved at the end of 2019. A legal instrument that supports the policy for the prospective development of renewable sources and the rational use of energy.

This norm establishes a group of conditions associated to the implementation of renewable energies, energy efficiency indexes, energy management systems and communication campaigns, but the arrival of COVID-19 affected the application of the decree.

Regarding energy management systems, he explained that they diagnose the energy situation of an entity, plan strategies, implement them, and control their results; then, from that point on, it goes back to the beginning as a process of continuous improvement.

The companies, she said, must draw up a five-year program for the development of renewable sources and the rational use of energy; this will make it possible to know where they are and where to go in terms of efficiency; to this end, they will be accompanied by the Onure and the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

As for the residential area, they will work on communication campaigns and learning for better practices; regarding the educational system, they will contribute to an education of sustainable consumption, which includes the protection of the environment to have a cleaner planet.