How should India conserve energy?

Answer 1

Energy Conservation

The strategy developed to make power available to all by 2012 includes promotion of energy efficiency and its conservation in the country, which is found to be the least cost option to augment the gap between demand and supply. Nearly 25,000 MW of capacity creation through energy efficiency in the electricity sector alone has been estimated in India. Energy conservation potential for the economy as a whole has been assessed as 23% with maximum potential in industrial and agricultural sectors.

Considering the vast potential of energy savings and benefits of energy efficiency, the Government of India enacted the Energy Conservation Act, 2001 (52 of 2001). The Act provides for the legal framework, institutional arrangement and a regulatory mechanism at the Central and State level to embark upon energy efficiency drive in the country.

Indian Industry Programme for Energy Conservation (IIPEC) Under IIPEC the Task Groups for Textile, Cement, Pulp & Paper, Fertilizer, Chlor-Alkali, and Aluminium have been formed and the first meetings of these groups have taken place at Chhindhwada (M.P.), Beawar (Rajasthan), Ballarpur (Maharashtra), Mumbai (Maharashtra) and Hirakud (Orissa) respectively. Each Task Force is being headed by stakeholders and BEE is actively involved in organising the programmes. The Members from the industry participate in this project for sharing Best Practices, declaring their voluntary targets and benchmarking, etc. The voluntary targets undertaken by the Members from Cement and Pulp & Paper sector will alone result in saving of Rs.175 crores and Rs.51 crores respectively by 2005-06.

Short Term Measures

1.Energy Conservation

• Bureau of Energy Efficiency operationalized Complete pilot phase of programme for energy efficiency in government buildings and prepare action plan for wider dissemination and implementation.

2. Energy audit of government buildings

• Energy Audit completed for nine govt. buildings.
• Legal Performance contract agreement, payment security mechanism, bids selection and evaluation criteria provided to all building owners for implementation.
• Five Building owners have floated tenders.
• Monitoring and verification of energy savings from March 2005.
  

3. Capacity building amongst departments to take up energy efficiency programmes

• BEE to train core group members to implement energy efficiency in buildings.

Long Term Measures

The Thrust Areas :

• Industry specific Task Forces.
• Notifying more industries as designated consumers.
• Conduct of energy audit amongst notified designated consumers.
• Recording and publication of best practises (sectorwise).
• Development of energy consumption norms.
• Monitoring of compliance with mandated provision by designated consumers.
  

Standards and Labelling Programme
Standards and labelling (S&L) programme has been identified as one of the key activities for energy efficiency improvements. The S&L program when in place would ensure that only energy efficient equipment and appliance would be made available to the consumers. Initially the equipment to be covered under S&L program are household refrigerators, air-conditioners, water heater, electric motors, agriculture pump sets, electric lamps &fixtures, industrial fans & blowers and air-compressors. Preliminary discussions have already taken place with manufacturers of refrigerators, air conditioners, agricultural pump sets, motors, etc., regarding procedure to fix labels and setting standards for minimum energy consumption.

Demand Side Management
The Demand Side Management and increased electricity end use efficiency can together mitigate power shortages to a certain extent and drastically reduce capital needs for power capacity expansion. The Bureau will be assisting 5 electric utilities to set up DSM Cell and will also assist in capacity building of DSM Cell staff. The preparation of investment grade feasibility reports on agricultural DSM, municipal water pumping and domestic lighting in each of the 5 states will also be undertaken by the Bureau under DSM programme.

Energy Efficiency in Building and Establishments
Energy audit studies conducted in several office buildings, hotels and hospitals indicate energy saving potential of 20-30%. The potential is largely untapped, partly due to lack of an effective delivery mechanism for energy efficiency. Government buildings by themselves, constitute a very large target market. The Government of India is committed to set an example by implementing the provisions of the EC Act in all its establishments as a first initiative. To begin with, the Bureau has begun conduct of energy audit in the Rashtrapathi Bhawan, Parliament House, South Block, North Block, Shram Shakti Bhawan, AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi Airport, Sanchar Bhawan, and RailBhawan. Energy audit in the Rashtrapati Bhawan PMO, S S Bhawan, Sanchar Bhawan & Rail Bhawan has been completed.

Energy Conversation Building Codes
The new buildings are required to be designed and built with energy efficiency consideration right from the initial stages itself. The development of energy conservation building codes is necessary for this purpose. The codes would be applicable to commercial buildings constructed after the relevant rules are notified under the Energy Conservation Act. The Bureau would constitute Committee of Experts for preparation of Energy Conservation Building Codes for different climatic zones.

Professional Certification and Accreditation
Designated Consumer. Under the EC Act, 2001 is required to appoint or designate energy manager with prescribed qualifications and also to get energy audit done from accredited energy auditor. It has been decided that prescribed qualification for energy manager will be the passing of certification examination to be arranged by the Bureau. Also, regular accreditation is proposed to be given to energy audit firms having a pool of certified energy auditors. The syllabus and other preparatory activities for conducting the examination have been finalized and the first National Level Certification Examination is scheduled to be conducted in August 2003.

Manual and Codes
In order to standardize the energy performance test procedures and adopt uniform codes while performing energy audit in the designated consumer premises, the Bureau has undertaken this activity. Initially twenty energy intensive equipments have been identified for development of performance test codes which will be developed and reviewed by experts, validated by field tests and pilot tested by training energy manager and energy auditors in these codes.

School Education Programme
Considering the need to make next generation more aware regarding efficient use of energy resources, it is necessary to introduce children during their school education. In this regard, a Steering Group comprising members from NCERT, CBSE, School Principals and Teachers has been constituted, which is assisting in preparing a detailed project covering review of the existing curriculum, training of teachers and sensitisation of school principals, undertaking practice oriented programme and launching of awareness campaign.

Delivery Mechanisms for Energy Efficiency Services
Although the benefits of energy efficiency are well known and recognised, investments in energy efficiency have not taken place due to variety of barriers faced by energy users, such as risk averseness and lack of motivation for making energy efficiency investments, and low credibility of energy auditors and their services, lack of confidence in the ability of energy efficiency equipment to deliver energy savings as expected, etc. An innovative way of overcoming such barriers is the approach of using performance contracting through energy service companies (ESCOs). The Bureau would be conducting investment grade audits in industries, which are proposed to be implemented on the performance contract basis by ESCOs.

Indo - German Energy Efficiency Project(Phase-II)
The Phase-I of the Indo-German Energy EfficiencyProject has been successfully completed by theerstwhile Bureau of Energy Efficiency(BEE) in June 2000.Activities in the Phase-II of the Project have alreadybegun and the project would be supporting thethrust areas of the Bureau as mentioned above.

Energy Conversation Award 2002
To give national recognition through awards to industrial units for the efforts undertaken by them to reduce energy consumption in their respective units, the Ministry of Power launched the National Energy Conservation Awards in 1991. BEE provides technical and administrative support for the Awards Scheme. In the Awards Scheme 2002,for Large and Medium Scale Industry, applications were invited from 17 Industrial Sub-Sectors i.e., automobile, aluminium, cement, chemicals, ceramics, chlor-alkali, edible oil/vanaspati, fertilizers, glass, integrated steel, mini-steel, paper& pulp, petrochemicals, refractories, refineries, sugar and textile plants. The automobile sector has been included for the first time in the Awards. 2002. The response from the industries to the year 2002 scheme has been encouraging. In total, one hundred seventy four (174) industrial units belonging to the above sub-sectors responded, which is a record for the Award Scheme since its inception.

The award scheme has motivated the participating units to undertake serious efforts in saving energy and environment. The data pertaining to 174industrial units indicated that in 2001-2002, these units have been able to save collectively 641million kwh of electrical energy which is equivalent to the energy generated from a 122MW thermal power station at a PLF of 60%.Besides the above electrical energy savings, the participating units have also saved 1.7 lakh kilolitres of furnace oil, 7.4 lakh metric tonnes of coal and 3588 lakh cubic meters of gas per year.In the monetary terms these units have been able to save Rs.594 crores per year and the investment of Rs.691 crores was recovered in 14 months time period. This year, the Awards were given by the Hon.ble Vice President of India.

Supply Side Energy Conversation
A number of Pilot Projects/Demonstration Projects have been taken up for load management and energy conservation through reduction of T & D losses in the System. The schemes under implementation during the year 2002-2003 include:-

• Two pilot projects for energy audit study, one in the distribution network of West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB) sanctioned in 1994-95 with the Ministry of Power's contribution of Rs.181.03 lakhs and the other in the distribution network of Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) sanctioned in the 1994-95 with the Ministry of Power's contribution ofRs.114.62 lakhs, have been completed successfully by WBSEB and KSEB through REC, during the current financial year 2002 . 2003.

• A pilot project for installation of 2414 LTS witched Capacitors was sanctioned in 1993-94 with the Ministry of Power's contribution of Rs.199.32 lakhs. The installation of 2370LT Switched Capacitors (with minor reduced scope of work) has been completed in 2002-2003 in Andhra pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, through Rural Electrification Corporation (REC).

• A pilot project of installation of 3000Amorphous Core Transformers in the distribution network of various State Electricity Boards, sanctioned in the 1993-94 with the Ministry of Power's of contribution ofRs.300.00 lakhs through REC has been completed successfully in 2002-2003 with some minor reduced scope of work.

• Three pilot projects on Remote Controlled Load Management in the distribution network of RRVPNL (sanctioned in 1996-97 with the Ministry of Power's contribution of Rs.297.50lakhs and revised to Rs.252.00 lakhs in March, (2000), PSEB (sanctioned in 1995-96 with the Ministry of Power's contribution of Rs.443.88lakhs) and HVPNL (sanctioned in 1997-98 with the Ministry of Power's contribution of Rs.237.22lakhs) were under implementation through REC. The projects of RRVPNL and HVPNL have been completed successfully during the 2001-2002while implementation work of remote controlled load management in respect of the 132 KV sub-station at Hoshiapur has been completed by PSEB in 2002-03.

• An Energy-cum-System Improvement Project, involving installation of Amorphous Core Transformers and LT Capacitors in the distribution network serviced by the Cooperative Electric Supply Society, Sircilla (Andhra Pradesh), sanctioned in 1995-96 with the Ministry of Power's contribution of Rs.508.00lakhs, is under implementation through REC and is likely to be completed shortly.

• Two pilot projects, one of the introduction of 500Electronic Meters with Time of the Day (TOD) facility, sanctioned in 1996-97 with the Ministry of Power's contribution of Rs.88.00 lakhs and the other for Energy Conservation and Demand Side Management by energy efficient lighting in WBSEB.s HQs at Kolkata sanctioned in 1998-99with the Ministry of Power's contribution ofRs.5.55 lakhs have been completed successfully during the year 2002-2003.