Efficient and accessible solutions to create a potent value proposition

Discussing ways to enhance efficiency, Dipankar Bhattacharya, Director and Country General Manager, Dunham Bush India, of developing energy efficient compressor technologies and other customised solutions to create value for customers.

How do you view the current trends in the Air Conditioning market in India?
Air-conditioning is no more a luxury item, it has become more of a commodity now, and because of that, there’s great traction in Indian air conditioning market. if you look at the overall market, there are three primary segments that are highly prominent; Residential, LC &VRF and applied segment.

Residential and VRF segment have experienced an exponential growth last decade or so. But that’s not the case with applied segment; owing to various reasons applied market couldn’t reach the expected growth mark. This segment witnessed a slowdown and was kind of flat till 2018 due to various reasons but again, there was a good traction in the market in last couple of years, though the increase was not by leaps and bounds but it was indeed a positive sign. With government adopting new infrastructural plan, we are expecting great growth numbers in the coming years.

HVAC systems consume 31 percent of energy in commercial buildings and 7 percent in the residential segment. What measure can be taken to augment the same?
I think the amount of energy consumed is more than what we think when we look at the complete system. Industry is highly conscious about the consumption rate and are taking all possible measures to reduce the energy consumption by bringing in efficient products. Industry has been progressively moving towards efficient living by revising the consumption levels downwards and bringing smart technologies to cater to variable loads. This is resulting in substantial decrease in energy spent in residential, VRF and also in the applied Segment. This is also fueled by the energy labelling program driven by BEE, Govt of India. Almost all the market players are constantly innovating their products to bring down the energy consumption across these segments.

With sustainable and new age refrigerants coming in, I can say that we are moving towards a more sustainable HVAC industry. We too have made technology and product upgradation to champion the cause of reducing energy consumptions with respect to our products especially centrifugal and screw compressor chiller products and we hope this trend stays for some time so that we could become more energy efficient as an Industry by pushing the envelope. We, at Dunham Bush, are constantly making efforts to research on new product and technologies.

What kind of products and solutions you showcased at ACREX 2020?
Dunham Bush is a global organisation, and is very well established in India. We have a strong presence in Southeast Asia, China, Middle East, Europe and in US market as well. Our products being sold across these regions fall under the same series that we manufacture in two of our world class facilities in Malaysia and China. Our mainstay would remain to be applied range, with two of our key products – Screw Chillers with Vertical Screw Compressor; which is strategically well placed in the market. Vertical screw compressor was introduced back in 1967, and since then we came a long way in terms of developing foolproof, robust, efficient and reliable technologies that offers industry leading efficiency, the other one is our centrifugal chillers where we offer very good efficiency and reliability across the range.

So, our focus is more on the mentioned two products for the Indian market. We also have high end products like magnetic levitation chiller, which is the new energy efficient product in the market. Apart from that, we have energy solutions around customised chillers. Most of the companies have chillers with standard features, but we provide flexibility for customisation on our products depending on customer needs.

How is your company contributing to accommodate comfortable environment in new building constructions?
We, as a company predominantly believe in two things; we deliver time tested product that are energy efficient and reliable; and secondly, we are price competitive. We believe that technology should be affordable and accessible to a broader customer base. Air conditioners today have higher penetration in new building construction segment and here’s where our work begins. The more we offer affordable, efficient and accessible technologies; the better will be the results for the occupants, as we believe in creating a work environment for better and efficient productivity. So that’s our small contribution to the productivity of the people and the occupants of the new buildings. And we will continue to focus on creating more viable and affordable technologies for our users.

How is Dunham Bush contributing in reducing the carbon emission and reducing environmental impact?
When you talk about air conditioners, there are two ways to reduce the carbon emission; one is directly through the product. So, every time we come out with a new product, we try to raise our efficiency standards in our product offering. Our entire engineering team operating from Malaysia and China are constantly exploring ways to improve our product’s efficiency by either altering the design of the compressor; or by deploying a more efficient heat exchanger. The other ways of course, in manufacturing processes that we deploy; we are looking at having efficiency in our factories across the world; we deploy highest measures in terms of efficient resource utilisation, energy consumption with least impact to the environment. We maintain highest environmental norms and ensure that our products are manufactured in sustainable manner.

How can HVAC system contribute in reducing the environmental impacts of pollution?
Pollution is not directly related to our product, but it also affects the indoor environment. We have wide range of products that aim at maintaining the indoor conditions that are more suitable for the occupants like the air handling units (AHU), roof top packaged units that maintain a healthy indoor air quality. To be more precise, our airside products come with the option of highest efficiency standards for air filtration. Though we don’t have a direct control in terms of outdoor pollution but due to high energy efficiency of our air conditioning products we are able to reduce the GHG emissions on the energy supply side of the grid.

What is your business outlook for next two years?
As far as India market is concerned, we believe that we are very uniquely positioned; mainly because of the explicit range of efficient and competitive products we can offer. We are more focused in India as we are receiving great response from our customers due to their strong connection with our products for years. we are looking at ways to tap the metropolitan cities as well as the tier-II and tier-III cities. Dunham Bush also has a fantastic range of light commercial products that we have started to offer in India market. Overall, we are very excited to be operating in the country and developing a robust framework to bring more value through our solutions. We believe that if we constantly innovate on our approach to serve our customers better, we will continue to create a loyal customer base in India in the years to come.

“Dunham Bush intends to bring in Efficient, customised and accessible solution to create value for customers and drive long term business growth in India.”