Energy savings exceed 30% of target under PAT scheme: Power Minister

Energy savings are 30 per cent more at 8.67 million tonnes of oil equivalent than the target in the first phase of the energy conservation scheme Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT), Power Minister R K Singh said Monday.

Under PAT Cycle I, more than 400 large industries from key energy intensive sectors in India took measures to improve energy efficiency during the last three years which resulted in energy savings worth Rs 9,500 crore annually, the minister said.

The PAT scheme is mandatory for all designated consumers notified by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and it is one of the major initiatives under the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE).

"The achievement of the first cycle of PAT has been very impressive indeed. The targets have been exceeded by more than 30 per cent. The first cycle itself led to saving of almost 1.25 per cent of our primary energy consumption," Singh said while releasing a report on the PAT Cycle I by the implementing body BEE.

"Just in first cycle of PAT we get 8.67 million tonnes of oil equivalent savings (MTOE). The II, III and IV (PAT) cycle will of course get at least 19 million tonnes of oil equivalent savings. We will be achieving our emission intensity target," Singh said.

The PAT scheme is a market-based mechanism to reduce specific energy consumption in energy intensive sector. If industries fail to achieve its target in energy savings, they will have to compensate by Energy Saving Certificates (ESCerts).

The best performing industries have been able to trade about Rs 100 crore in the form of ESCerts with the defaulting consumers.

The scheme has been extended to over 800 designated consumer covering 13 sectors with the inclusion of refinery, DISCOMs, Railways, Petrochemical and Commercial Buildings (Hotels). The projected target under this scheme is over 15 million tonnes of oil equivalent by 2019-20.

Under PAT Cycle I, more than 400 large industries from key energy intensive sectors in India have made exemplary efforts towards improving energy efficiency during last three years.

The systematic efforts by adopting energy conservation measures by these industries coupled with technology upgradation have resulted in energy savings worth Rs 9,500 crore annually.

The main industry sector whose energy savings was evaluated pertains to Thermal Power Plant, Fertilizer, Chlor Alkali, Aluminium, Iron & Steel, Pulp & Paper, Textile and Cement sectors, which consumes more than 50 per cent of the country's total primary energy.

The various industries have adopted state of art technologies such as waste heat recovery, Top Recovery Turbine, Coke Dry Quenching, andcompressor optimization in pursuit of improving their specific energy consumption in respective sectors.

The minister also released outcome report for the study conducted by the BEE which demonstrated energy savings of 8.67 MTOE against target of 6.686 MTOE which is 30 per cent excess over the targeted energy saving.

The key sectors who performed exceedingly well are Pulp & Paper, Iron & Steel, Aluminium, Cement etc. The assessment and verification process was conducted by the BEE through an online framework with the assistance of Accredited Energy Auditors.

The outcome of scheme also resulted in energy saving of more than Rs 9500 crores, investment by industry of about Rs 26,000 crore and capacity building of more than 5,000 engineers and operators.