Maharashtra: Govt buildings save 1.3 million units of power every month, says PWD

Ajay Mathur, director general of The Energy Research Institute and president of the GRIHA Council said that while government buildings were already enrolled for the programme, the challenge was to bring in the private sector into the fold. (Representational Image)

About 1,400 government buildings across the state have been able to cut down electricity consumption and save 1.3 million units of electricity every month, according to statistics from the Public Works Department (PWD). These are old buildings that have been retrofitted with energy efficient appliances from Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), a central government agency for providing energy services and rated for energy efficiency.

Last year, Union Minister Piyush Goyal had announced that government buildings in Maharashtra would be rated for energy efficiency. Thereafter, the PWD identified 5,000 government buildings across the state that were to be rated by the national rating system for green buildings, Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment. “Of these 5,000, in seven months 1,440 buildings have been rated and retrofitted with EESL appliances. This has helped save 1.3 million units every month. We are now working on the remaining buildings,” said Sandeep Patil, chief engineer, PWD Maharashtra. While these 1,440 buildings are spread across state, there are 337 retrofitted buildings in Mumbai and Konkan. In Pune there are 262 retrofitted buildings.

The project was taken up under the National Buildings Energy Efficiency programme wherein the state PWD entered into an agreement with the EESL to retrofit 5,000 government buildings by 2019. While EESL has pooled the initial investment for the project, the PWD will share 70 percent of the bill amount that it saves with EESL for five years.

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Ajay Mathur, director general of The Energy Research Institute and president of the GRIHA Council, told The Indian Express that the retrofitted buildings have helped save 18-27 percent of the energy consumption of these government buildings.

Mathur said that while government buildings were already enrolled for the programme, the challenge was to bring in the private sector into the fold. “Developers need to be incentivised for building more energy efficient buildings with tax discounts or additional floor space index,” he said. “Engineers in Maharashtra PWD are being trained in designing and certifying buildings according to GRIHA standards. These engineers can go and rate buildings on behalf of GRIHA,” he added.