Energy Efficiency in Buildings

As the summer months progress and our hydro-electric reservoirs dry down, along comes the dreaded load-shedding. While it is true that the demand for electricity is far greater than the supply, I guess there is surely something we can do to shorten this gap from the supply end. For this post, I would skip the issues with ‘leakage’ or electricity and ‘grid inefficiency’ and would discuss about the technical and policy aspects at the end-user level. I hope you will be able to add your inputs and we can get the required policy changes through collective lobbying. (Image Courtesy jalalspage)

The problems:
Office buildings: Modern urban office buildings are designed very inefficiently from the energy point of view. On one end of the spectrum are the buildings of old economy that have very low open areas. These buildings have ‘boxy’ designs due to the cost advantages offered by providing fewer windows and fewer open spaces. This however translates to a lot of wasted energy for light and fans. On the other end are the swanky glass clad buildings of new-economy companies. These designs, copied blindly from the western world have a very poor thermal behaviour in tropical climates. Since glass allows light to enter and not exit the building (known as greenhouse effect), the building interiors get heated up more than they should. This translates to higher energy demand for air conditioning. Also in most cases, the designs are not done considering the natural forces and fail to utilise effects like natural drafts, and natural ventilation to the best advantage.

Domestic buildings: While an average middle class family in India does not have air-conditioned house, the number is surely on the rise and will increase as families become more affluent. Most houses also need to use fans during summer months owing to higher temperature as well as badly planned ventilation design. Heating water also consumes a significant portion of domestic energy demand.

Solutions:
The problems can be addressed a large extant by meticulous attention to energy-efficiency issues during planning stage in buildings. For example, office buildings could be much more energy efficient by effectively using light and natural ventilation, partly supplemented by artificial means. Similarly, discouraging use of glass at the cost of energy inefficiency can be discouraged. Domestic consumers can greatly benefit from solar water heaters and better planned cross-ventilation. Apartment complexes can use stack effect to their advantage. There are a lot of solutions if we look around but what is missing is…

… Regulations: Without regulations to enforce better building practices, it is very hard to get energy efficiency into buildings. While the solutions for energy efficient buildings do not increase the cost, it might still need a regulative boost from the planning bodies. What I am proposing in this post is that the bodies like BDA/BMRDA etc draft an Environmental Policy for new buildings and include that as part of plan-approval process.

These measures might not be able to totally offset the energy supply-demand gaps, but they will help the environment in a positive way and reduce the load on infrastructure. The situation is not very bad yet, but is never too early to start thinking about future. After all, it is the last-minute measure that we have been historically taking that have put us in the whole fix of badly planned cities.
[Please use the comments section to express your views for/against this proposal and what various aspects these regulations should include]