Industry needs smart energy framework

BANGALORE, INDIA: The world has estimated to consume 20,000 billion KWH of electricity in 2010. By 2030 the consumption level will grow to 30,000 billion KWH, with demand significantly higher from emerging economies like India and China.

Electronics can make a big difference in the energy efficiency of products and systems. Companies should work on building smart grid network, intelligent appliances so that they contribute to higher energy efficiency.

Speaking at a session in ISA Vision Summit 2011 here on Monday, Kapil Mohan, IAS, Deputy Director General, Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Government of India, highlighted that ICT has a significant role to play in energy efficiency. A lot of monitoring and verification cannot remain manual; electronic appliances will have to move from a 5-star energy rating to a smart appliance, where two-way communication will enable supply chain load transformation, load response and other features.

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Talking about alternative way of increasing efficiency, Dr. Anurag Srivastava, senior vice president, Energy and Sustainable Services, Wipro Eco Energy, said that companies need to look into a model where they know what is being consumed and control it post facto. They should work on smart grid network and dynamic energy management.

James Thomson, principal, Deloitte Consulting, USA and Deloitte Global Leader of Smart Grid Practice, shared that companies should look at option of smart meter reading devices. These automated/automatic devices can be made affordable by volume players. In this way it could lead to building up smart grid.

However, in the process, the vendors would have to look at technology integration, interoperability and security concerns. But in a country where people can figure out how to securely transact for money, they figure out how to secure meter data.

Dr. Satish Kumar, Energy Efficiency Ambassador VP, Schneider Electric India, added that while smart grid should be made affordable and available, there should be benchmarking energy use in buildings and clean rooms. Performance of a building should be linked with the electric consumption, and other metrics. This would not only make the audits less costly, but also lead to better system-level benchmarking.