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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

New buildings keep guzzling, small steps at home giant leap for energy saving -Amitabh Sinha
-The Indian Express

All the extra money that you spent on installing CFL lights in your homes, in buying new LED television sets, and on five-star rated air-conditioners and refrigerators instead of three-star ones, have proved to be worthwhile, having resulted in huge energy savings for India in the last decade. Between 2000 and 2011, a total of 791 million tonnes of oil equivalent energy was saved, thanks to measures like these, some of which were thrust by the government, and others a result of individual initiatives.

Because of these savings, about 10,836 MW of electricity generation was avoided, according to the initial findings of the first of its kind study being carried out by ICF International, a consultancy firm. In terms of electricity, 95.3 billion units were saved. India's annual consumption of electricity is about 700 billion units. If this entire saved electricity had to be produced from coal-based thermal power plants, India would have burnt another 98 million tonnes of coal.

A bulk of these savings have come after 2006, once the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), that was created in 2002, started pushing various energy efficiency schemes.

"Our annual energy consumption has been growing at about 5 per cent per year, while we are now saving at about 1 per cent a year. What it means, therefore, is that in the absence of these savings, our consumption would have been growing at 6 per cent a year, putting further strain on our resources. Saving energy is the only way to grow faster," said Ajay Mathur, BEE director general.

Energy efficiency measures - CFL bulbs, LED screens and lights, five-star rated ACs and refrigerators - accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the energy savings. The rest was attributable to "structural shifts" like the transition from kerosene or wood to LPG as cooking fuel, or increased production of energy by renewable sources, and the use of technologically advanced household and industrial equipments, according to the ICF study.

Less than 25 per cent of the savings due to efficiency measures were a result of BEE initiatives, the study reveals. A large part of the efficiency measures were voluntary, indicating that people were becoming more conscious of the need to save energy and the long-term economic benefits coming out of it.

The results of the study have important implications for India's strategy on climate change as well. The energy intensity - amount of energy used to produce one unit of GDP - has, in dollar terms, reduced 25 per cent during this period, from 0.25 kg oil equivalent per US$ in 2000 to 0.19 kg oil equivalent per US$ in 2011. What this means is that we are using less energy for our economic activities now, and are able to produce much more than earlier with the same amount of energy.

A healthy reduction in energy intensity is a very effective shield for India in the international climate change negotiations where it is under constant pressure to take steps to control its greenhouse gas emissions, which are now the fourth largest in the world. India now has the lowest energy intensity among the BASIC countries - Brazil, South Africa, India and China, who often group themselves together in an informal but formidable bloc in the climate negotiations. It is still substantially higher than many developed countries, some of which have energy intensities well below the 0.1 kgoe/ US$ mark.

Enhanced energy efficiency is one of the eight missions in the National Action Plan on Climate Change that was unveiled in 2008, some of the others being the National Solar Mission, National Water Mission, the Green India Mission, and the Mission on Sustaining Himalayan Ecosystems. From the results so far, the Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency has been the best performing and the most effective. The Integrated Energy Policy of the Planning Commission published in 2006 had talked about reducing energy intensity by 25 per cent (it had not mentioned the target year), a goal that has already been achieved by 2011.

Sector-wise, the maximum contribution in reducing energy intensity has come from the services and communications sector which reduced its energy intensity by an average of 3.33 per cent per year during this period. Industry managed a reduction of 1.38 per cent per year while the agriculture sector showed only a 0.09 per cent per year decline.

"It seems that because of free electricity and subsidised diesel, there is little incentive in the agriculture sector to save energy," said Soumya Prasad Garnaik, head of Energy Efficiency division of ICF International, who has been involved with the study.

The savings have not come without costs. The ICF study has calculated that a total investment of Rs 11 lakh crore (or Rs 11 trillion), across all industry and sectors, has been made in the 11-year period on energy-saving measures. But these investments were recovered in a maximum of about 2.5 years from the energy savings.