As part of stringent initiatives taken up by the Andhra Pradesh Government, the State Energy Conservation Mission (SECM) is planning to notify the Energy Conservation Building (ECB) Code by end of January, 2013.
The main objective of SECM is to make ECB Code mandatory mainly in the areas of lighting, heating, pumping, recycling of water and rain water harvesting in all large buildings such as Shopping Malls, Multiplexes, Sky scraper Commercial and Residential buildings which are having load more than 100 Kilowatts to use energy efficiency equipment such as star rated equipment and to adopt energy conservation norms to realise the huge energy savings.
While reviewing the energy conservation and energy efficiency initiatives in the Municipal areas and urban buildings, Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department Principal Secretary Busi Sam Bob said that the Sub-Group on ECB Code was contemplating to propose the guidelines suggesting proper standards and norms for energy efficient equipment and other measures to minimise the energy consumption to the optimum level in large buildings, particularly in multi-storied buildings from planning and designing stages. GHMC Commissioner MT Krishna Babu, HMDA Commissioner Neerabh Kumar Prasad, NREDCAP Managing Director M Kamalakar Babu and other officials of APCPDCL and representatives of ASCI were also present in the review meeting.
Chief Secretary and Chairperson of SECM Minnie Mathew has directed the Sub-Group to submit to evolve an independent monitoring system to ensure strict compliance of ECB code with third party certification and to suggest a suitable incentive scheme to encourage energy efficiency.
The Principal Secretary said that the comprehensive report will be placed before the technical committee in the next high level meeting to be held on December 17 to discuss the modalities of proposed ECB code. While explaining the need to make ECB code mandatory for large government and commercial buildings, Neerabh Kumar Prasad felt that the relevant parameters specified in the ECB code 2007 framed by the Govt. of India, would be suitably incorporated in the existing Buildings Rules of GO No 168 of the Government of Andhra Pradesh.
The GHMC Commissioner suggested various modalities of the proposed ECB Code, implementation and impact on the expected energy savings in urban areas. As per the proposed initiative of the government, the ECB Code mandates all the high rise buildings to strictly comply with the EE and EC measures to ensure substantial energy savings. (INN)