Shifting scenario to revolutionize green building future

The ongoing scenario of new normal and digital integration impacts future of green buildings and coming building energy performance standard signify positive trends in the HVAC market.

Corona has taught us the word “New normal”. But, it is not going to be the new normal, it is going to become a regular feature. Everybody has seen what would happen. So it’s going to be a win-win situation for all the people. 

ISHRAE organised an event ‘Symposia 2021’ where a round table conference was held in Mumbai with the theme ‘Unlocking the New World of MEP post Lockdown’. The distinguished experts who participated in panel discussion included, Rajan N. Bandelkar, President, NAREDCO India; Amitabha Sur, National President – ISHRAE and Director, Operations – Aircon India and Amod Dikshit, President, Mumbai Chapter ISHRAE and Managing Director at Dikshit Consultants & Engineers Pvt. Ltd. In an exclusive discussion with Thermal Control Business Update, participants elaborated upon the query raised. They talked about the current scenario, the green buildings and how the pandemic proved advantageous to rise with more opportunities. 

MoU signed with NAREDCO 

Elaborating upon MoU, Amitabha stated, NAREDCO’s Job is putting up buildings; they are a group of builders. That is where it starts from because they appoint architects and architects, to plan the building. Now, our MoU with NAREDCO is to make them more aware, conscious and channelize their investments towards green and healthy buildings to create a better environment because they’re the investors and we’re the facilitators for them. We are not investing in buildings, we are into building services, and our job is to kind of give them the design which will make the building more energy efficient and healthier. So that is the MOU that we are signing that we will work in tandem. There has to be synergy in all parties. It has to be an integrated approach to sustainability. If you are thinking differently and I am thinking differently and we go in our own ways, then sustainability will never come. We’ll all have to come to this table. And we will have to agree that sustainability is required for our future generations to live in a better world. The moment you understand that what you are doing today you are actually doing for your children’s future. The day you understand that you will not do this, that is what sustainability is. Our MoU is basically to work together to come up with green and healthy buildings, and that infrastructure should be energy efficient and healthy.

The training part and the learning process involve doing workshops, seminars, because we are the technical body for the HVAC, we all look at the building services. So, we are the technical arm and we will be sharing technical knowledge, training, and workshops. We are also looking for better efficiencies because it becomes easier for them to sell a better efficient building. 

Energy efficient HVAC technologies demand evolving in India 

Expressing his thoughts, Rajan Bandelkar replied, first of all, I would like to thank whoever has given us Corona for good, because as you know we are all sleeping for so many years. But Corona came and woke us all up and after Corona came we haven’t slept and I think that nobody once again goes back to sleep. We signed an MOU between NAREDCO and ISHRAE. What I mean to say and it is not for us it’s for our future generation because probably, till we are there our natural resources might be there but we don’t know about the next generation. To protect them, we have to act today. That’s why we are acting today and everybody is serious and they understand what can happen. God has pressed the pause button; he hasn’t pressed the stop button. So next is that after pause there is a stop button so before He presses the stop button, let’s go back from pause to play button in a proper way. 

Orientation needs to shift towards green buildings 

Rajan emphasised, see, its mindset, nothing else because I spoke to many consultants, everybody’s telling me the cost is not going to be much different. So I told them to give me the exact cost. Because, what happens until and unless I don’t know how much it is going to cost me, I will be worried. See everybody does business for a profit. So if he doesn’t know what the cost is, it is going to be war and then it is going to be a problem, but the people there who are already working they know that the government has also come very actively on this. And yes, in olden days, the cost was very heavy, but now it is negligible. Rather, it is more advantageous. If you see, then you might be on the profiteering side if you really educate people also. 

To a query about HVAC solutions in green buildings in the new normal, it was replied that Corona has taught us this word also “new normal”. So it is not going to be the new normal, it is going to become a regular feature. Everybody has seen what would happen. So it’s going to be a win-win situation for all the people. 

Digitalisation enabled industry 4.0 technologies in HVAC 

According to Rajan Bandelkar, it’s more than digitalisation, Corona has taught us because this is a physical meeting everybody is doing after one and a half years. But I think they must have done more virtual meetings than how many physical meetings they would have done in one and a half year. If you compare the previous one and a half years, compared three years. The earlier one and a half year how many physical meetings they must have done, they have done more virtual meetings than whatever they’re done in physical meetings. So it’s a positive thinking. 

Secondly, in a physical meeting you have to be present. In a virtual meeting you are present but nobody knows from where you are present. You are sitting in any part of the world and still you are present. So, it has a positive advantage also. The only thing that Corona has made us easily accessible and acceptable. Otherwise, earlier I used to take people on conference calls. But now, 100s and 1000s of people are only on one zoom call or there are so many apps which are there. So it is 100 percent beneficial to each and every intuition. 

HVAC tech innovations in 2022 

On this, Amitabha said, see whether I like it or not the innovations that are going to come are artificial intelligence. It will be on controls, because we have walked a long way in making our compressors efficient, what it used to be of course, there is further work going on to make them further efficient, but where a lot of work has happened and you will see that now on integration of this system and controlling this system efficiently is the task for which more and more dependence will be now on artificial intelligence and on IoT, Internet of Things. 

Amod Dixit added, AI is going to take away the human interfaces and take away the inefficiency of the human interface. Because at any point of level, I might give you the most efficient system and spend the largest amount of money but the operator does not know how to operate it. 

Message for the industry right now 

Rajan says, “Let’s be responsible and build such a community where our future generation doesn’t curse us.” 

Amod added by saying, we’re talking about affordable housing, low cost housing. Green Building is not only about air conditioning, even if the building is not air conditioned, it doesn’t mean that it is not a green building. 

What is our job as ISHRAE? We are doing a conference which will be held in 24 cities called ‘URJAVARAN’. Okay. So it’s actually about energy efficiency. This year the theme of that conference is ‘DISHA’, what is ‘DISHA’? Its dialogues in sustainable HVAC and architecture, which means that we are actually aligning with architects which is where the concept is building up. We are working with the architects in tandem and coming up with designs which will be sustainable. What is sustainability is what we can start from today itself by reducing our wants, recycling the materials that we have, reusing what we have before buying further. 

Highlighting the importance, Amitabha remarked, remember the mantra now it is not only green, it is green and healthy. You know, because green is on energy efficiency, which is very important because we have to cut down on our coal usage and fossil fuel usage. The government of India has taken a lot of steps in terms of popularising EVs, because again, we are talking of petrol diesel prices rising because we’re eating tons and tons of 1000s and lakhs of tons of fossil fuel. Now, the world cannot last like that, similarly with coal. So the more that awareness comes, the government will bring this you know, regulations or awareness, and our role is to support government and bring this awareness along with them and reach it to the mass, the more we can reach it to the mass the faster we reach it to the mass. And all of us can play this part. We all have our part to play in this so that’s what green building is. But before that, certainly, we will make it happen. 

Concluding Amitabha stated, I will add to that how ISHRAE is kind of enabling this or kind of helping the industry to support them. We are coming up with a standard on building energy performance. It will be measuring or actually setting the standard on how energy performance should be monitored and should be built also because it’s easier to build anything, you can build a green building.