No freebies for green buildings: Goyal

Power Minister Piyush Goyal today ruled out incentives like cheaper loans and other government support for adoption of Energy Conservation Building Code 2017.
The minister stressed that the economies of scale like in the case of LED bulb distribution programme, would help the nation to adopt better technologies at competitive rates without any subsidy.
"I believe that as we scale it up the cost will come down and we will get better technology in the system, and for more practical implementation we will not need any subsidies or incentives. It would be an economic benefit itself," Goyal said at the launch of Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) 2017 here.

He further said, "Whenever we remove subsidies and government involvement, we found the roll out (of a programme) much faster, efficient, no question of corruption or any other misuse of government support and no barriers to the limits".
Certain section of media were expecting that the government would introduce cheaper loans and stamp duties for green buildings to boost energy conservation in various types of buildings in the country.
"I personally feel that there should be no (government) support and make it economically viable through India's sheer size and scale," the minister said.

On lower stamp duty incentive for green buildings, Goyal said if states want to give some incentives then they are free to give that.

He was of the view that people's sensitivity to energy wastage itself sufficient for greater and faster roll out of the code.
The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) prescribes the energy performance standards for new commercial buildings to be constructed across India.
In order for a building to be considered ECBC-compliant, it would need to demonstrate minimum energy savings of 25 per cent. Additional improvements in energy efficiency performance would enable the new buildings to achieve higher grades like ECBC Plus or Super ECBC status leading to further energy savings of 35 and 50 per cent, respectively.
With the adoption of ECBC 2017 for new commercial building construction throughout the country, it is estimated to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in energy use by 2030.

The cut in energy use will translate into power savings of about 300 billion units by 2030 and peak demand reduction of over 15 GW in a year. This will be equivalent to expenditure savings of Rs 35,000 crore and 250 million tonnes of CO2 reduction.
On the stressed power projects, the minister said, "We just had preliminary discussion with bankers. We will have to have a very good technical assessments done so that more realistic solution is found so that we don't face hiccups as we
go along, as in the case of Teesta project".
On Hydro power policy to revive stalled projects he said, "We will try to expedite so that those projects which are not found economically viable but technically feasible be a part of the hydro electric story of India".

Under the hydro policy the power ministry has planned a package of over Rs 16,000 crore to revive 11,639 MW capacity in the country.