Conference on “Efficient Energy Management"
The Secretary, Ministry for New and Renewable Energy, V.Subramanian (third left), releases a souvenir at the conference on “Efficient Energy Management Practices in Health Care Industry” in Coimbatore on Wednesday.The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is working with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to bring out a rating system for energy efficient buildings. Secretary of the Ministry V. Subramanian told presspersons here on Wednesday that the objective was to have a system that would rate the buildings according to the Indian conditions. The Ministry proposed to divide the country into different zones for the purpose. A society with a set of energy auditors would do the rating. It also proposed to suggest tax concessions for buildings that complied with the standards at different levels. The country had 12,000 MW of grid-connected renewable energy capacity. During the Eleventh Plan period another 14,000 MW was expected to be added.Earlier, inaugurating a conference on “Showcasing Efficient Energy Management Practices in Health Care Industry”, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, he said energy management was a necessity and industries and households should go in for more efficiency on this front.
The concept of energy servicing companies should be encouraged where professionals would install and operate energy related systems.The Chairman of the Kovai Medical Center and Hospital, Nalla G. Palaniswami, said that hospitals were energy consuming with power needed for equipment, air conditioning and space heating or cooling. Hospitals should be planned and designed in such a way that it helped conserve energy. They should have an energy management team.The Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, Coimbatore, R. Radhakrishnan, said hospitals consumed power on all days of the year and throughout the day. They needed power for various purposes and the energy demand increased with use of sophisticated equipment. Hospitals should not be treated as industries so that they would be able to bring down the service cost.
Chairman of the CII Health Care Sub Committee (Southern Region) U.K. Ananthapadmanabhan said the healthcare sector had seen a huge rise in energy cost in the last 10 years. The total energy bill for the country from the hospitals alone was expected to be about Rs. 1,000 crore and this would double by the end of this decade.The vice-chairman of the CII, Coimbatore Zone, C.N. Ashok, said that the rule for energy conservation should be to think, plan and act. With the economy growing at the current pace, energy needs would also go up.
