CII joins hands with BEE for enhancing energy conservation

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has joined hands with Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) to enhance competitiveness through energy efficiency of industries.

For this purpose, CII and BEE are jointly organising a series of workshops at various industrial locations in north India with an emphasis on energy efficiency in different sectors.

In Uttarakhand last year, a workshop was organised at Haridwar. This year, another workshop on “Enhancing Competitiveness through Energy Efficiency” was held at Rudrapur.

Renowned experts from industry, government agencies and academia briefed the participants on various initiatives, schemes and technologies and new initiatives that are available or being adopted by industries for energy conservation.

Speaking during the inaugural session, Atul P Renavikar, chairman, CII Kumaon Zone and plant head, Tata Motors stressed on the urgent need for the industry to start adopting energy-efficient technologies in the wake of ever-increasing gap between demand and supply of energy sources. He said the industrial sector is the single largest consumer of commercial energy, accounting for over 52 per cent of the total energy consumed.

“Energy is also a major cost input in manufacturing industries,” Renavikar said. He opined that in a competitive market scenario, where cost reduction is the prime concern, energy conservation is of paramount importance for every manufacturer.

Dr Vinay Kumar Pathak, vice chancellor, Uttarakhand Open University, said it is the need of the hour to include energy conservation in the education system. He said lack of awareness on conservation is the root cause of increased demand of energy and exploitation of natural resources.

During the technical sessions, S N Sharma, DGM Manufacturing, Tata Motors, Pantnagar, focused on energy conservation in manufacturing units. Sharma said that the manufacturing sector can achieve substantial saving in the consumption of energy by adopting energy-efficient methods.

The main reasons for higher consumption of energy are obsolete technology, lower capacity utilisation, casual monitoring of energy consumption, lower automation, low quality of raw material and poor operating and maintenance practices.

Other speakers at the session were S Kalera, Deputy Director, PCRA and R K Gupta, Senior General Manager, Gujarat Ambuja exports Limited.