Abstract

In the next 18 years, India will add 67% of the floor space projected for 2030, or about 2.3 billion square meters. Buildings consume 33% of total energy in India and this is growing at 8% per annum. For a large scale market change, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency developed the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC). Through mandatory ECBC compliance, India can achieve an annual energy saving of 1.7 billion kWh. The rate of compliance with ECBC is forecasted at 10% until 2013, 35% in 2015 and 65% by 2017. To achieve this, ECBC must be adopted by the states and barriers to enforcement by local governments must be overcome. Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation funded a study to develop a tiered approach to compliance, with evaluation of individual ECBC measures for energy savings, incremental cost, and ease of enforcement. The findings were peer reviewed and the measures were then bundled in to tiers. Lower tiers include ECBC measures that are easy for market adoption, and are enforceable through the current building permit process. This will help build capacity over time and allow developers to get experience with building energy efficiency. It will help enforce ECBC and build capacity at same time without reducing stringency of the code. This approach can be enforced more effectively given the current construction and real estate practices.This paper summarizes the analysis and presents the policy case for the Tiered approach.