8 Energy Saving Ideas For Buildings

India’s building energy use accounts for 35% of the nation’s energy use, & this is growing by 8% annually. From various studies, it has been observed that there is an energy saving potential of 30-40% in the existing commercial buildings out of which the major portion of it can be exploited by technology upgradation & adopting operational best practices. Already hotels were recognised as designated consumers where energy saving targets were imposed and in couple of years there are very high chances for all other subsectors of buildings like IT Parks, Hospitals, Multiplexes, Banks etc., to join the list. To comply with the rules, to save on energy cost and also to reduce environmental impacts its high time now for the building industry to aggressively implement the energy conservation measures.

Here is the list of eight energy saving ideas/ opportunities for buildings

1. Infrared thermal imaging to identify and optimize the operation of idle thermal loads which will lead to reduction of at least 2% cooling load.

2. Implementation of two-stage indirect evaporative cooling technology will increase EER from 3.5 to 8 where comfort temperature and % RH requirement are 260C & < 65% respectively.

3. Low grade waste heat recovery module installation can extract 6-10% waste heat energy from chiller system.

4. Intermetallic compound based active refrigerant agents will avoid oil fouling which will lead to 5-10% of energy savings in refrigeration system.

5. Implementation of online condenser cleaning will keep condenser approach less than 4 Degrees C and saves 2-3% of chiller energy consumption.

6. Integrated hybrid day lighting systems will reduce lighting energy consumption significantly with nearly 50% ROI.

7. Installation of hybrid power quality enhancer will provide 5 - 7% energy savings by imbalance voltage optimization, reactive power compensation and harmonic mitigation.

8. Intelligent closed loop algorithm based AC energy saving technology will save energy consumption of split, packaged and ductable units up to 15%.