An Energy Efficiency Awareness Workshop

Today, representatives from several government departments met at the Radisson to discuss the implementation of an energy labelling scheme for energy-efficient equipment and appliances. The project involves the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality and is supported by the Belize Bureau of Standards. The awareness session today exposed information that will be contained on the labels, the role of retailers and the general public and how the labels will be affixed to appliances including air conditioners, refrigerators and lighting. Janice Hilaire of CARICOM and Ryan Cobb of the Department of Energy spoke on how the implementation of new standards will reduce the cost of these appliances.

Ryan Cobb

Ryan Cobb, Acting Energy Director, Ministry of Public Service, Energy and Public Utilities

“What we are looking towards is setting minimum technical specification stating that if these three appliances do not meet this minimum technical specification, they will not be able to enter into the country. But we are not looking at just implementing it on a country basis; we are doing it in partnership with CARICOM. Creating a larger market power so that these manufacturers don’t make appliance for Belize, they are making appliances for the region, stating that these manufacturers are already shipping to the U.S. which has higher standards and we are stating you need to give us this specific type of product. There will no longer be inferior products on the market. The other benefit is that ultimately, by having a large regional market, we are looking to drive the cost of these appliances down as well.”

Janice Hilaire

Janice Hilaire, Project Coordinator, CROSQ

“We have gone ahead and developed those energy efficiency labelling standards which will give requirements on how the label should be, where they should be on the appliance, how they should look, the quality and what inrfo9ation should be on them. And we have gone ahead and provided training on the two labs—Jamaica and Trinidad which will be providing those testing services for us. We are now at the point where we are promoting the initiative and building an awareness of what we are trying to do.”

The labelling scheme comes into effect by 2019.