The Kerala Energy Management Centre, the State-designated agency for implementing the Energy Conservation Act-2001, has sanctioned an inter-disciplinary study of 150 households in Ernakulam district for end-use energy efficiency.
EMC sources said the proposal for the study was made by the Society of Energy Engineers and Managers (SEEM). It will be a first-of-its-kind initiative in the State for energy efficiency in the domestic sector and is expected to be completed in four months. SEEM is a body of certified energy auditors.
The proposed study assumes importance in the wake of an unusually hot summer, resulting in a peak in power use, and a prediction that power use could well go up to 100 million units by 2018 given the current consumption trends. For the record, power consumption during peak hours had breached previous records in April to cross 80 million units and 4,000 mw.
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SEEM general secretary C. Jayaraman said the objective of the study was to enhance identified end-use efficiency schemes and policies in the residential sector after identifying barriers and drivers and adopting intervention strategies like home energy audits, surveys, interviews, awareness campaigns, and field demonstrations.
He cited recent studies to emphasise that even with adequate knowledge about energy savings and a professed desire to do so, many consumers failed to take steps to achieve energy efficiency and conservation.
The end-use energy efficiency in the residential sector will be an integrated, trans-disciplinary study, which will cover 50 households each in the corporation and municipalities to form a total sample size of 150, said a letter from the EMC.
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The survey, which is aimed at finding the ground situation with regard to energy use in individual households, will be followed by a programme to create awareness about energy conservation.
A comprehensive energy audit of 30 households with necessary measurements of different end-use equipment to plot their energy consumption profile and to assess their performance will be part of the study.
Even with adequate knowledge about energy savings, consumers fail to take steps to achieve energy efficiency
C. Jayaraman,
General secretary,
SEEM