Enhancing energy efficiency for the built environment

India Cooling Action Plan involves methods in the construction methodology.

India Cooling Action Plan is an integrated plan. It is focused on the cooling action plan, the carbon footprint and all the equipment integration considered with the built environment. It is a preferred option in building a conscious environment for an ecosystem for the occupants’ well-being. Besides infrastructure, the approach needs to include all the services for various integrations within the building and the systems.

Aspects of the India Cooling Action Plan ICAP was launched in March 2019 by the Ministry of Environment, forests and climate change with a twenty-year vision. The perspective shared concerns about actions needed to provide sustainable cooling. Sustainable cooling involves integrated energy efficient equipment within multiple ranges of systems. It talks about general building science and passive features to mitigate the dependence on active design features.

The practices of adopting vernacular trends and architecture need to be included. They were a part of every region geographically and native to India. They are getting adopted again for various heritage conservation projects. The Jaipur Smart City Project is an example of this. The occupants feel relatively relieved now. This has been designed with all the passive design features with aspects of ventilation which date back ages ago. These features are unique and modern in the aesthetic aspect. The built environment has to be constructed according to the Indian climate.

India geographically has been divided into five climatic zones, as per the national building code. And these climatic zones have been formulated based on the microclimate within each region. However, visions under ICAP have been formulated. It contains the cooling demands, the refrigeration demands, and the cooling energy requirements. Altogether, the vision is to reduce all these demands for another twenty years. It will further enhance the quality of life of occupants within the building.

Built environment and its provisions
An occupant is seated within more than one compartment space in the building. The space also comprises a bedroom and working space. All the features within integrated portions and the humidity levels within that compartmentalised area must be covered. There is a dire need to work on every macro aspect, from the building to the site and city levels. For this, an integrated plan of development for the entire country can be discussed. The cooling action plan encourages the integration of skilled workers also. It emphasises how to channelise integrating HVAC technologies into the manufacturing sector for various industries.

For the residential sector, there is ECBC-r. For the commercial sector, ECBC was released in 2007. And after the Energy Conservation Act 2001 was revised, ECBC rereleased it in 2017. The latest provisions of the EC Act and the renewal of the talk about mitigating carbon footprint would help establish a footprint for broader targets. It is being done to provide the planning horizon for businesses covered under the purview of the EC Act. Intensity-based trading systems for carbon emissions have also been discussed in the augmented amendments and clauses of the act. This would help reduce carbon emissions by cap and trade methods for manufacturing sectors. It will also help in curbing air pollution and other pollution levels.

Parallel to this, many ministries on an inter-ministerial and interest state level have been making a dialogue since 2014- 2015. There have been several plans to maintain the national ambient air quality standards. It was in the form of counting the continuous emission monitoring systems for the manufacturing segment. Through by-laws, the plan has been implemented at various levels. Integrating energy conservation building codes in every state of India is a vast process. They have been channelised through the urban development agencies.Over the past years, the government has had much more clarity. There are so many measures that they have adopted. In line with the Renewable Energy Division for each state, the government has separate renewable energy in ECBC Cell. It talks about capacity building in integrating the people involved with the building and infrastructure segments. It provides them with the knowledge base of ECBC as a code and the value it will add to the building. Slowly and steadily, the government has been penetrating the by-laws of the state and trying to amend certain policies to benefit energy consumption patterns. Through this, ten states have already absorbed ECBC in their by-laws. Ten more states are on the line of absorbing their by-laws. The construction of high-rise buildings in developing countries has air conditioning units protruding out of windows. The equipment within those small enclosed spaces results in a considerable amount of CFCs getting released into the environment. Due to this, the national ambient air quality standards are not met. The basic knowledge of HVAC demand is less, and equipment is energy guzzlers. Twenty carbon markets are active worldwide. They are operating in economies of the world that provide close to 40 percent of the global GDP. The future is very heavy in terms of size for economies because first-world economies have developed. They have the equipment and everything in place, but the developing countries have integration of technology in  the built-up. To provide a predictable plan for the horizon of the businesses, caps on emissions have been put on, and these caps are becoming tighter.

These aspects can be catered to through small steps within the building and infrastructure sectors. Although there is rapid urbanisation, it is a conscious decision for the environment. It is taken by individuals and the government to make the maximum out of our resources in tandem with all the by-laws and policies. Conservation is for more than just help. But, excellent energy-efficient water management, waste management and site planning aspects need to be discussed on a broader spectrum.