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India Leaps the Hurdles of an Energy Building Code

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Date: Aug 11, 2010

Earth seen from space

By Hana Chmielewski

On the fast track to high electricity use in the next decade, India is mitigating an energy crisis by pursuing energy efficiency and conservation programs. One of these programs is the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC), which was developed in 2007 to curb energy use in buildings. The ECBC will soon become mandatory, and the Alliance is helping with its implementation.

Staving Off an Energy Crisis

Access to electricity is a large determinant of economic development, drinking water availability, infrastructure effectiveness, health care quality, and even life expectancy. This relationship has meaningful implications for India, which regularly suffers from the effects of energy shortages — including frequent blackouts — as demand for electricity outstrips generation capacity. .

Due to rapid commercial and industrial development and population increases, half of India's population either does not have access to electricity or can't pay for it. The buildings sector (including the commercial and the public service sector) accounts for 30 percent of the total primary energy supply in India. As more urban and rural residents get connected during electrification programs, the energy deficit is remaining stable at about 10 percent, despite increases in generation capacity.

Set to follow China's path of rapid increase in per-capita electricity use in the next 10 to 15 years, India is enacting programs to mitigate the energy crisis by aggressively pursuing energy efficiency and conservation program in various sectors. Begun in 2007 as a voluntary policy, the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) is soon to become mandatory in order to better check energy use in buildings.

Why Are Buildings a Priority Area?

India's commercial building sector is growing at a rate of nearly 10 percent annually due to the rapid development in the service sector. New buildings constructed in the next 20 years are predicted to make up 70 percent of all building stock by 2030. ECBC describe the minimum energy performance standards for the design and construction of the buildings.

To satisfy expected demand growth over the next two decades, India's electricity generation capacity must increase five- or six-fold. However, electricity providers are already struggling to meet current needs: Overall shortages come close to 10 percent of demand, and peak shortages exceed 16 percent of demand, according to a 2010 report by USAID.

"People don't necessarily grasp the connection between energy blackouts and energy efficiency," said Aleisha Khan, Executive Director of the Building Codes Assistance Project (BCAP). "It's difficult for users to prioritize energy efficiency at times when there's no energy to conserve."

Increasing awareness about the link between blackouts and efficiency is a central function of a current Alliance project. This project, funded by ClimateWorks/Shakti Foundation, aims to help India overcome the challenges of implementing its Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) as the voluntary code becomes mandatory.

How Will the Alliance Help Address the Problem?

The Alliance's project will consist of organizing two workshops designed to smooth India's transition to state-level enforcement of ECBC. The workshops will offer guidance on adopting ECBC as well as breaking through the administrative and technical obstacles to saving energy in new and existing buildings. The workshops also will assess the practicality of incorporating ECBC into state and local building construction municipal bylaws.

"Code development is one thing. Implementation is another," said Satish Kumar of International Resources Group (IRG), and Chief of Party of the USAID's Energy Conservation and Commercialization (ECO-III) Project. "ECBC needs to become mandatory. Only then will implementers start to pay attention.".

Although the code has existed for three years, municipal officials, builders and private sector stakeholders lack experience in navigating the technicalities of ECBC and its integration with design practices. The Alliance's workshops will help inform stakeholders about the inner workings of ECBC and will introduce strategies for enforcing it.

Once ECBC is mandatory, building codes will be enforced by the state governments, through urban local bodies. Yet, the current structure and mechanisms at the state level in India do not facilitate coordination between the central, state and local government, and are not well-equipped to enforce ECBC.

"It's not the 'stringent code' that really will create a roadblock," Alliance India Office Director Pradeep Kumar said. "It's the systems in which this code needs to fit that will be a big challenge." Kumar added that addressing organizational and financial barriers — as well as changing stakeholders' mindsets and behaviors — will help create demand for adoption of energy-efficiency technologies and services.

Through roundtable discussions, pilot projects, and a toolkit that will be disseminated to facilitate widespread implementation of ECBC, the Alliance's workshops will prepare state-level officials to achieve the code's greatest energy-saving potential.

Carrying out the Alliance's ECBC workshops also will achieve the dual benefits of raising the baseline for energy efficient practices in India and market development of energy efficient products such as building insulation, efficient windows and high efficiency HVAC equipments.

The Power of Potential

With the strong correlation between per-capita electricity consumption and per-capita gross national product, India's potential to develop economically and improve social conditions largely hinges on the provision of reliable power.
Through its ECBC workshops, the Alliance hopes to engage leaders and build the awareness necessary to ensure effective implementation of the code. By expanding expertise in this area, India can establish a precedent for energy efficiency in the built environment.

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