Kenya: BAT Leads in Sustainable Energy Rule Compliance

Source from:  The Star 05/22/2015

Cigarette manufacturer British American Tobacco is the first company in the country to comply with the new energy saving rules, the Energy Regulatory Commission announced yesterday

ERC yesterday awarded BAT for sustainable use of energy resources as per the Energy Management Regulations 2012 which aim at promoting sustainable energy use by companies, reduce the cost of energy production and cut on waste.

According to ERC, the country wastes up to 30 per cent of energy annually.

The regulations apply to facilities that use more than 180,000 kilowatt hours of power annually.

Speaking at the event in Nairobi, ERC director general Joseph Ng'ang'a said: "we are proud that BAT has set the pace for peers in the medium and high energy consumption sectors to comply with these regulations."

BAT said it has saved approximately 5.18 million KWh of electricity valued at Sh77.7 million and 466,907.76 litres of heavy fuel oil worth Sh40 million.

The firm's operations director Dirk Eloff said some of the steps taken by the company at its Nairobi plant include upgrading of compressed air system, yielding a 15 per cent reduction in energy consumption. It also upgraded its tobacco feeding and de-dusting system, achieving 18 per cent reduction in energy consumption.

Other measures include replacement of passenger lifts with modern ones (20 per cent reduction), use of high efficient motors among other factory facilities upgrade.

"As a global company, BAT's strategy on sustainability is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 per cent by the year 2030 from our 2000 baseline," said Eloff. Enditem