Buildings represent around 33% of the electricity consumption in India [1]. An estimated 1.3 billion sq. m. of new commercial floor space will be added in India over the next 20 years approximately twice of what exists currently [2]. The demand-supply gap in electricity and peak power availability continues to widen; while over 40% of India’s population do not have access to electricity [2]. In India, around 65% of electricity is generated by thermal power plants which use fossil fuel as primary energy source [4]. In other words, building industry indirectly holds a major share in CO2 emission which a major reason for climate changes.
None the less is the reason that promotion of research, development, and capacity building in the field of energy efficient and sustainable buildings is one the eight national missions in India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change [3].
Conventional buildings are energy guzzlers but new scientifically designed buildings consume about 40-60% less energy which causes less CO2 emission as compared to conventional buildings [1]. As an estimate, mandatory enforcement of high performance building designs in all new construction in India will yield an annual energy savings of approximately 1.7 billion kWh [1]. Presently this equals to monetary savings of INR 9.6 Billion per year.
This saving is tremendous, and extremely necessary for improvement of India’s GDP and eventually standard of living in India. To achieve this goal India needs a large number of academically sound experts to lead high quality research and development, which presently are scarce in India.
None the less is the reason that promotion of research, development, and capacity building in the field of energy efficient and sustainable buildings is one the eight national missions in India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change [3].
Conventional buildings are energy guzzlers but new scientifically designed buildings consume about 40-60% less energy which causes less CO2 emission as compared to conventional buildings [1]. As an estimate, mandatory enforcement of high performance building designs in all new construction in India will yield an annual energy savings of approximately 1.7 billion kWh [1]. Presently this equals to monetary savings of INR 9.6 Billion per year.
This saving is tremendous, and extremely necessary for improvement of India’s GDP and eventually standard of living in India. To achieve this goal India needs a large number of academically sound experts to lead high quality research and development, which presently are scarce in India.
Reference of facts:
1. Energy Conservation Building Code 2009, Ministry of Power, Government of India.
2. ECO-III, US AID INDIA, Net Zero Energy Buildings program, article, http://eco3.org/NZEBs
3. Report, National Action Plan on Climate Change, Government of India, http://pmindia.nic.in/Pg01-52.pdf, Page no. 26
4. Wikipedia article name “Electricity sector in India”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_India#Generation
I was unaware that buildings can be so important for environment. Thanks for the blog.. :)
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