Good practice and success stories on energy efficiency in India

Abstract

The growing per capita income in India is expected to increase the demand for various energy-consuming products and services among Indian households. Enhancing energy efficiency remains one of the cheapest options to “produce” energy in India, as the efficiency of many energy systems has a large scope for improvement, and as this option plays an important part in enhancing India’s energy security. This report focuses on success stories from India and presents a few successfully implemented initiatives (policy/​programme) that have the potential to significantly enhance energy efficiency in relevant sub-sectors. The report covers a number of sub-sectors and, in all, 11 success stories have been presented. A stakeholder consultative process was adopted for selecting these 11, out of the approximately 70 case studies. Each success story is explained in terms of a short introduction, followed by why the policy was initiated, what was done, effects of the policy, challenges experienced in implementing the policy and its replicability. The success stories highlight that there are varied approaches to achieving the improvements in energy efficiency. In some of the success stories, the governmentidentified a priority technology, ensured that technology was made available to end users at subsidised costs, and supported it through capacity building and training on the technology use. This approach has given good results for LED lighting, Solar Rooftop Systems, Biogas Plants, agricultural pump sets and cook stoves. In the case of PAT schemes, a market-based approach has been used to incentivise more efficient technologies within the identified industries, and it has yielded positive results. The technology choice in this case was left to the companies within the industries. In the case of the buildings and appliances sector, the overarching focus is on standards/​codes and labelling, respectively, to provide information about the technology. Some success stories have already been replicated in India -- e.g. the PAT scheme is going into its second phase, more appliances are being added to the standards and labelling programme, more cities are being added to the metro programme, etc. Replication in other countries, however, would need an understanding of their enabling frameworks before deciding on a course of action.