Special Address At The International Conference At Energy Conservation

Energy Conservation: Challenges

I am happy to address the International Conference on Energy Conservation here today. I greet the organizers, energy experts, academicians, industrialists, municipal authorities, building experts participants and distinguished guests.

The experiences

When I am in the midst of energy management specialists, I would like to share with you two experiences. The first one is regarding use of solar energy for cost effective heating at Brahmakumaris Shantivan Complex, Mount Abu and the second one is related to use of Nano technology for producing energy efficient and cost effective LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes).

Large Scale Solar Cooking

Solar cooking is one of the important applications in the field of renewable energy. During the last 20 years many designs and concepts have been developed and tested in the field of family cooking in the form of box type solar cookers. Now new technology has come to complement the box cookers. With this new technology it is possible to cook for larger number of persons using solar energy within a short span of time. Prajapita Brahmakumaris Iswariya Vishwa Vidyalaya has become one of the institutions, who have manufactured in their own workshop at their premises and installed a large solar steam cooking system at their headquarters Shantivan Complex, Abu Road, Rajasthan. The system is designed for cooking 2000 meals twice daily based on the certain technological collaboration. Typical power generated is 1 Mega Watt hour per day. I am citing this example to suggest to you the necessity for making such systems in all our big apartments, hotels and industrial complexes, which can substantially reduce the energy, cost and also minimize the pollution created by using other forms of energy sources.

High Efficiency Nano Crystal LEDs

Dr. R.N. Bhargava, a Nano technologists from USA came and met me at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He demonstrated to me a very optimal and efficient lighting system based on Nano crystals. The recent advances in semi conductor based lighting chips ? Light Emitting Diodes (LED) can provide six hours of reliable light to every home or shop in a village at virtually no recurring energy cost and minimum installation cost. These LEDs require a tiny fraction of energy used for other forms of lighting. LED based lighting can be easily provided with solar panels or foot pedal generators. For nearly 40 years LEDs were weak color light sources (Green, Amber and Red) used mostly as indicators and numeric light. LED technology in recent years has improved dramatically. Today LEDs, using 10 watt of power could produce light equivalent to a sixty-watt filament lamp. Filament lamps are highly inefficient since 90% of the energy is dissipated as heat, Fluorescent lamps are more efficient but still waste energy by heating gases, whereas LEDs convert energy to light very efficiently. Typical LED lamps burn over 10 years or longer, they withstand much greater temperature changes, mechanical vibrations and shock. They are reliable and fade away slowly and there is no sudden stoppage of light. New discoveries in Nano technology make LEDs much brighter and make the products less expensive, which can revolutionize rural electrification for lighting. The field is fertile for research and development of high efficient and low cost LEDs, using Nano-Crystal.

Newer design perspectives

Let us now address energy conservation issues pertaining to buildings and related services. Energy is required while constructing the buildings and subsequently for their maintenance in the form of providing lighting, maintaining a desired particular temperature, provision of essential services such as water, drainage system, heating, cooking etc. The building design has to take into account both these aspects so that construction cost of the building can be low and also the recurring cost for getting the different services by the occupant is also low.

I was going through the data on transmission and distribution loss taking place in our system. I would like to discuss this issue since loss reduced is equivalent to energy produced.

Power System Loss Reduction

The major concern is the loss of power in transmission and distribution in our country ranges from 40 to 50%. That means when we generate 78000 MW of power, the consumer gets only 47,000 MW of power, whereas in the industrially advanced nations the loss is only 15% (12,000 MW). Hence we could see, comparatively we have an additional loss of 19,000 MW of what we produce. If we have to install capacity for this 19,000 MW we will have to make an investment of over Rs. 76,000 Crore at a conservative estimate of Rs. 4 Crore per mega watt of power generation. This is the magnitude of the problem we are faced with. We need to take urgent action to remedy the situation and bring down this loss by working on mission mode. In this programme collaboration between energy producers, transmission engineers and R&D specialists is required.

Energy consumption: Targets

It is reported that the total energy consumption in Indian Buildings are as follows: Commercial sector: 21.6 billion kWh (32% for A/C, 60% for lighting, 8% others)

Residential sector: 36 billion kwh (35% light, 29 % fan, 7% cooler, 14% Refrigeration, 4% A/C, 11% others).

One of our expert says that ?For a normally constructed building, the present energy consumption is 300 kwh per m sq annually which can be brought down to 140 kwh per m sq annually by proper designs/details/philosophy, where as in Germany with its strict energy codes it is reported that the consumption is only 50 kwh per m sq annually. It is all the more important for India to achieve at least a target of 100 kWh per m sq annually with in the next 5 years. This will need coordinated effort between architects, builders and the energy engineers, a newly developed expertise.

The architects and building planners have to play a very important role in the design of the building with these features. The seeds of this perspective have to be sown in the schools of architecture and town planning. Energy conservation should start right from the location of the site, the direction of buildings, windows, doors, glare etc., the aim should be to use maximum advantage of the sun and wind, while minimizing the wasteful heat load from sun into the buildings and roofs.

Embodied Energy

The construction sector plays a significant role in economic development of the country. Activities in the construction sector are complex, highly dispersed and resource demanding. The activities of the sector result in the loss of important natural assets and impose severe stress on the environment. Agricultural land is often lost through urbanization and extraction of raw materials. The consumption of fossil fuels contributes to increased air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases. Energy is required for manufacturing materials, for transport and for construction of buildings. Apart from this initial energy use, there is also need for energy for functioning of buildings. In the developed countries there is a growing demand for an environmental impact assessment of all building projects, which includes considerations of embodied energy i.e. the energy that is consumed in extraction of raw materials and production of finished building materials.

However construction is crucial to the prosperity and civilization of human beings. People require habitats, schools, work places, markets, places for sports and cultural activities. Our task therefore is to have more and better construction for our billion people, but minimize per capita energy consumption in the whole chain of value addition in construction and maintenance for example, the comparative embodied energy consumed for different type of buildings is indicated below:

Type of Building ------ Embodied energy (KWH per sq.m)

1. Residential Buildings ---- 2200

2. Office Buildings ----- 5000

3. Hotels ------- 4000

4. Hospital Buildings --------- 5500

The energy use in the production of building materials accounts for a high proportion of the total embodied energy in buildings, and thus improvement of energy use in production processes is a crucial part of any overall strategy for energy conservation in the built environment.

A good beginning has been made in the energy conservation area due to the enactment of the Energy Conservation Act 2001, Bureau of Energy Efficiency has been formed which has initiated the task of developing Energy Conservation Building Codes.

In addition, peak load sharing techniques would help energy saving. This can be done by working compressors at night and use ice slurry during the daytime. Similarly solar energy peaks can be stored as cooled fluids to reduce air-conditioning loads. Recycling of water for cooling towers will save two critical resources: energy and water.

Energy Conservation in Manufacturing

At this stage I would like to recall my experience during 1983-84, when there was severe shortage of power in Andhra Pradesh. The Defence labs had a peak load constraint of 3 mega watt power, whereas the connected power was over 10 mega watts. This situation leads to inefficient working of all the three labs located in the complex. To overcome the situation the three Directors of the laboratories at Hyderbad devised an innovative plan to stagger the working hours in such a way that one set of laboratories used to work for a four day week (from Monday to Thursday) of 10-1/2 hour duration per day. The other set worked on a different four days (Thursday to Sunday) with one common working day available among all labs to facilitate inter laboratory communication. This system ensured conservation of energy and maintained efficiency within the peak load constraint imposed by the state electricity board. This is one way of practical energy conservation.

The energy conservation in the shop floor has to start right from the operator. We have to clearly create awareness and a sense of responsibility among all operators to conserve energy in their own limited area. One method of planned improvement can come by having a constant review of the energy utilization and reasons for variance. The variance analysis will lead to determination of the causes of increase which in turn can be attended to by the maintenance personnel. Also, there is a need to install energy conservation control system which will be initiated whenever the machinery is idle and is not required to be kept on.

In continuous operation chemical plants, switching off and on, it may lead to inefficient process leading to enhanced energy utilization. Wherever continuous reliable energy is not available it will be economical to use back up system to ensure process efficiency and prevent in fructuous energy expenditure due to unplanned start ? stop operation.

Solar farms

India is well poised for the generation of solar energy in view of the continuous availability of sun shine through out the year. Installation of centralized solar photovoltaic systems, which can be fed to a grid, will be a long-term economically viable solution with added benefits of pollution control. Present solar cells have the efficiency of 13 to 15%. But the research effort shows that, with the advent of CNT/Polymer Composite Based Photovoltaic Cell, the efficiency of Photovoltaic cell will increase to 50%. This can pave the way for building mini 100 mega watt solar power stations in different regions of the country like Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. Industries can plan one or two megawatt captive power plants based on either solar energy or biomass plants using solid waste.

Conclusion

Energy is a vital input for industry. Enterprise wise energy conservation is an important wealth generator for every industry. For ensuring competitiveness per capita energy utilization is an important index. Keeping this in mind, I would request the Conference to address the following issues relating to practical energy conservation implementation strategies:

(a) Evolve energy utilization norms for different industry such as cement, aluminum, steel, urea, textile etc on per capita basis and provide a challenge to designers to work towards the target.

(b) Create an enterprise wise review mechanism to reveal the variance from planned utilization to the actual. As far as possible try to allocate the responsibility for this variance and take immediate corrective action.

(c) Create an idea bank in which employees can provide innovative solutions for energy efficient operations. There must be a system of analysis of ideas for implementing practical ideas on the shop floor.

(d) Progressively install energy efficient lamps, energy efficient heating and AC system in the enterprise.

(e) Energy conservation award through a structured competition can be introduced among the various divisions in the enterprise.

(f) In house R&D establishment should constantly work towards energy efficient processes for adoption.

My best wishes to all the participants of this Conference for a fruitful deliberation and providing energy conservation solutions to the industry.

May God Bless you.