Abstract
The expanding commercial building sector and urbanization in India leads to an increase in demand of energy many folds. Consequently, it is the need of the current scenario to define some regulatory regime or policy to harness the enormous potential of energy savings. Under the Energy Conservation Act 2001, the Government of India under the Bureau of Energy Efficiency launched the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) on a voluntary basis. ECBC sets the standards of minimum energy performance for “large commercial buildings. These norms were for both new and existing buildings. Retrofitting of existing buildings offers noteworthy opportunities for reducing global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This paper provides a systematic approach to review the application of energy conservation building codes in existing buildings and identification of the best retrofit strategies to stimulate the implementation of ECBC in the country.
Highlights
The major factor which is responsible for severe negative environmental impact is the buildings
This is usually caused by the excessive energy, resource, and power consumption, which all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions [1]
The Energy Statistics 2013 by India’s National Statistical Organization (NSO) presents more than 57% utilization of total energy consumption as electricity during 2011-12 in India, and around 40% of that electricity is utilized by the building sector already
Summary
The major factor which is responsible for severe negative environmental impact is the buildings. The gap between demand and supply in the building sector might be caused due to growing energy needs of the various countries Such issues can be potentially resolved using the energy efficiency concept as an effective tool. Achievement of existing building retrofit practically is being considered as one of the main challenges for decreasing the consumption of energy and greenhouse gas emissions It plays a very important role in improving the nation's energy security, minimizing exposure to energy price instability, creating new placement opportunities, social responsibility and providing more human comfort [5]. The proposed ERF can help construction industry and government agencies to speed up the rate of increment in energy efficiency of remodeling building stock and reduction in energy consumption of buildings which will directly reduce carbon emissions and improves the nation's energy security. Few State Governments in the country have adopted and apprised ECBC in their gazettes, thereby initiating the process of composing code compliance mandatory for commercial building stock falling under amended EC Act, 2001 [12]
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