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Dr Ajar Mathur
- Date
- 01 December 2009
Growing energy demands in India will drive a need for greater generation capacity, as well as place an emphasis on continued and extended efforts to use currently generated energy more efficiently.
In August 2009 the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Manmohan Singh, approved 'in principle' detailed plans under the energy efficiency mission of the National Action Plan on Climate Change. The Climate Group spoke with the Director General of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Dr. Ajay Mathur, to find out more about the work happening on energy efficiency in India and what can be done to enhance these efforts.
What are some of the key focuses for the Bureau of Energy Efficiency?
Over the past 8 - 9 years energy efficiency in India has been increasing at a good trot, and energy intensity [has] declined by about 20-25%. This is due to a variety of reasons, including the fact that energy prices in India are fairly high both in absolute terms as well as in terms of the affordability relative to people's incomes.
Yet there are places where energy efficiency opportunities continue to exist largely because of a range of market failures: information, risks and split incentives. This has led the Government of India through the Energy Conservation Act and the Bureau of Energy Efficiency to launch several programmes.
Firstly we have introduced labels and standards for appliances which provide comparative information as well as energy use information for refrigerators, air conditioners and a range of other appliances. In 2008/09 78% of the refrigerators sold and nearly 50% of the air conditioners sold were labelled. We have now made it mandatory that from the 7th of January next year all refrigerators, air conditioners, distribution transformers and fluorescent tube lights that are sold in the country must have a label.
The second major programme that is ongoing relates to buildings - particularly large new commercial buildings. There the goal has been to enhance the efficiency of the building while it is being designed. Therefore an energy conservation building code has been introduced and right now we are building up the capacity of architects to be able to design according to these codes.
The third area that we are working in is industry, where a reporting system for energy use in large energy intensive industries has been set up. We have identified nine sectors with a total of 714 units that are required to employ an energy manager, get energy audits done, and report what they have done with those audits. We are also in the process of asking these 714 designated consumers to comply with specific energy consumption norms.
The NAPCC outlines plans for the Energy Efficiency Mission to yield savings of 10,000 MW per year. How will the programs you mention above help meet this goal? How will this mission build on efficiency measures that India has already introduced?
As a result of all of these activities - labelling, buildings, industry and so on - in the past year, (2008-09), energy savings - and these were verified by a third party agency - were about 5 million tonnes oil equivalent. This is a little over one percent of our total fossil fuel consumption and the avoided electricity generation capacity was about 1200MW. What the National Mission on Energy Efficiency does is it builds on all of these programmes.
The first and I think flagship, programme that the national mission introduces is something that builds on our existing industry programme - this is called the Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) system. And here, as I mentioned earlier, for 714 energy intensive industries we would be specifying energy consumption norms. But what the national mission does is it moves it a step further. It says that somebody able to do better than their target would have those excess savings provided to them as tradeable energy savings certificates. These could then be sold to other units unable to comply with their specific energy consumption norms.
Each of these units has a particular target for improvement in its specific energy consumption, which is in percentage terms. The greatest challenge is the wide bandwidth of energy efficiencies in almost every sector - some of the newer plants are amongst the most energy efficient in the world, but you also have older plants which are much less energy efficient. Therefore having one benchmark doesn't serve the purpose - we want all of them to become more energy efficient.
The Mission also has two other operational programmes: one is to help market transformation from less efficient appliances to more efficient appliances. An example of this is the programme [Bachat Lamp Yojana], we have to promote use of compact fluorescent lamps in households instead of incandescent, using the programmatic CDM to cover the price difference.
The other relates to promoting Energy Service Companies [ESCOs] which go in to for example, old buildings, to implement energy efficiency projects. They [ESCOs] pay for it themselves and in turn get paid from the energy savings that occur over a period of time. This is a new business model: our goal is that we will handhold the first few transactions but after that it should start working by itself.
Have any international experiences been taken into account when developing the PAT scheme?
There are the sulphur and nitrogen schemes in the US [and] there is the European trading scheme for carbon dioxide. We have analysed all of them to see what lessons can we draw, and those lessons have been incorporated into the design of this programme - for example, the importance of the early allocations.
Secondly, we would like the measurement and verification process to be relatively easy, and that's why we are using the specific energy consumption as an indicator. This is a gate-to-gate measurement system: total amount of energy that enters the gate [divided by ]total amount of product that leaves the gate. That's it. These are also easy to verify because you can check it against energy bills, you can check it against the excise that is paid for the product that goes out and so on.
The third thing that we have learned is that, as far as trading is concerned, it should be as transparent as possible in order for price discovery to occur. And therefore we are working with the two power exchanges in the country to set up trading platforms. Obviously people can go in for bilateral deals, but we would very much encourage that the deals are done through the trading platform so as to both enhance liquidity as well as to enable price discovery.
It has been reported that the Energy Efficiency Permit scheme will create a US$ 15 Billion market. What sort of financial flows do you expect to take place in this market?
The 15 Billion market is a update of an earlier study carried out by the Asia Development Bank of the kinds of opportunities that occur in the sectors that are covered by the various programmes of the national mission. In a very real sense, all of these investments are being made even today.
The key is that Instead of investing in conventional technology, we would like investments to occur in more efficient technology - and there is an incremental cost to this. Now, based on our understanding we find that the capital costs are 10 - 20% higher than in the base cases; and payback periods are of a 3-5 year timeframe. We don't feel that the absolute level of financing is a major issue. What is a major issue is the incremental financing, and more importantly, the comfort of financial institutions in lending for higher-cost technologies.
So, a key issue that still remains is risk. Now risk is a very interesting thing - it is dynamic with time. Today people are very uncomfortable with using a particular energy efficient technology which has just been developed, but a few years later, ten years later, when enough people have used it then suddenly the risk perception falls and people are willing to spend the extra money. So the key to us is how to accelerate this time in which the risk perception becomes manageable - and that is where we are looking at incremental finance to make it happen. So far as at least these win-win situations are concerned, we need to carefully structure the incremental financing availability.
In order for all of these three programmes [market transformation, building, and industry] to occur, there is obviously a need for a financial supporting structure. So, the mission looks at creating a venture capital fund which could invest through equity in ESCOs, in companies that manufacture energy efficient products and so on.
We are also looking at a partial- risk guarantee mechanism through which banks who lend for energy efficiency are provided with some amount of comfort so that if they are not repaid, then part of their repayment would be met through the partial risk guarantee fund facility.
Finally, ahead of Copenhagen, how do you think global collaboration could action on energy efficiency, in India and internationally?
As far as India and the work of energy efficiency is concerned we see, first as I said, the need to accelerate the adoption of more efficient technologies. [For this there is the need for] global cooperation efforts for technologies that are already mature. Then there is the need for global cooperative efforts to tweak existing technology to developing country needs. And the third are global cooperation efforts for tomorrow's technologies. I think a successful deal will have to create global cooperation in all of these three areas.
Let me focus on the second [point], for...there is a problem: global technologies that are available cannot be applied as they are to Indian situations for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the raw material is different, people's ability to pay is different, and that the products - and I make a distinction between technologies and products - people need are different.
How can global cooperation help? We have put forward [a proposal of] a network of innovation centres. Each innovation centre is not so much new brick and mortar, but actually a coordination hub, so if we feel we need a particular technology to be tweaked - eg a particular type of decentralised power generation -the centre would bring together and coordinate the efforts of three different kinds of communities:
The first community is the community of buyers and sellers: Why? To get an idea of the price and performance targets at which they would be willing to buy these technologies.
The second is the community of regulators and policy makers who in a sense create these markets or enlarge these markets, who make it possible that such kinds of technological solutions can be bought; if there are any restrictions against them they are removed.
And the third is the people who actually develop these technologies. These will be private sector companies and they would be supported by research labs, by universities, by state of the art engineering knowledge from anywhere over the world. And therefore this innovation centre helps bring together all the technical knowledge, all the engineering knowledge, from different parts of the world to make it happen.
When these three communities come together it is my belief that the time between the technology development and its large scale adoption shrinks.
Dr Ajay Mathur is Director General of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, and a member of the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change. As Director General of BEE, Dr. Mathur coordinates the national energy efficiency programme, including the standards and labeling programme for equipment and appliances; the energy conservation building code; the industrial energy efficiency programme, and the DSM programmes in the buildings, lighting, and municipal sectors.
He has worked on energy research, financing, and implementation; he has headed the World Bank's Climate Change Team in Washington, DC, and the Energy Engineering Division of TERI in New Delhi; and has also been President of Suzlon Energy Limited.
Dr Mathur received the Outstanding Alumni Award of the University of Illinois in 2002 and is the coauthor of three books, lead author of several reports of the IPCC, and the joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.


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Post 2: Party! Party!
Posted By: Walter Wasacz
8 Comments
The actual
festival contains plenty of dance party fun for the average human. But this being Detroit, average simply goes out the window. It's a part of the electronic music cultural DNA to link party after party after party together to create new experiences you probably have never had before, nor will likely repeat in exactly the same way. Make some good picks, seek out new friends, drink plenty of water and you should have an appropriately weird but grand time wherever you end up. Especially if you take at least some of the following suggestions from this humble blogger, who has rocked and raved through all 10 festivals since 2000.
Something quite different and highly recommended is
2010: A Detroit Odyssey
, which comes courtesy of Planet E, the Carl Craig Foundation and the newly-minted
Detroit Techno Foundation
. On the bill is Fritz Lang's Metropolis (with pre-recorded soundtrack by Jeff Mills); Timeless Suite for Ma Dukes, featuring the music of the late Detroit hip hop innovator James "J Dilla" Yancey; and The Drive Home: the Story of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, produced by Detroit's Pilot Pictures and Hogpath. There is also a live performance by Timeline, featuring Mike Banks of Underground Resistance. Good stuff. Best of all, it's free. It starts at 7 p.m. and goes to midnight. Friday, May 28, at the Music Hall, 350 Madison Street, Detroit.
Another party worth your time (and for a reasonable amount of money: $10.) is Yel3, the official Movement pre-party also on Friday featuring high-flying dutchman Speedy J, Windsor-Berlin's Matthew Hawtin's and Ann Arbor-based Spectral Sound's 10-year anniversary bash with Matthew Dear, Ryan Elliott, Seth Troxler, Lee Curtiss (live) and Birds & Souls. It's at St. Andrew's Hall, where they used to call this three floors of fun. That would be a gross understatement this time around. 431 E. Congress Street, Detroit. It kicks off around 10 p.m.
Last year's cruise on the Detroit Princess was one of the highlights of the 2009 after-party scene. Unless you couldn't get a ticket, that is. This year's riverboat hullabaloo could be even better with Chilean-German superstar Ricardo Villalobos on board. Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen, and Berlin's Cassy are also on deck. Boat leaves the dock just south of Hart Plaza at 1 a.m. Sunday, and gets back around 6 a.m. Get details
Later the same night on the other side of town is
Moodymann's Soul Skate
at the Northland Roller Skating Center (22311 W. 8 Mile Road, Detroit). Free soul food with $15 admission. It's a winner, guaranteed. It goes from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Also at
Detroit Threads
in Hamtramck (10238 Jos. Campau), special in-store DJ guests expected include Pirahnahead, Aaron-Carl and Andy Garcia; plus Jennifer Paull and yours truly of the ambient-disco-dub project nospectacle. We play records Monday, 3-6 p.m., but talent is spread out over five days, beginning Thursday, May 27. It's all free and clothes and record shopping (owner Mikel Smith has sweet stuff, some real gems) are encouraged.
Expect me to be back in a week or two with a roundup of this extraordinary festival weekend in Detroit. I trust you'll go out there and experience some of it for yourselves. It's regional danceable art in the form of a gift to us all, not to be missed, if at all possible. That goes for all you people heading up north or visiting hipster friends in Williamsburg or Wicker Park. We're staying home, getting physical with ears and eyes wide open, enjoying the best years of our lives in our own backyard. Beat that.
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subset: commoncrawl


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We interrupt your normal levelheaded Vinography programming with the following outraged rant.
Listen up wine industry folks, this whole state fair thing has gone on long enough and it just needs to stop. If I hear one more winery boasting that their Zinfandel won a gold medal at the Butte County fair, and silver at the Cal State Expo, I think I'm going to be sick.
And listen up wine consumers, while I explain to you how utterly ridiculous and meaningless these awards are, and how you should never use them as part of your decision for purchasing a wine.
What I am about to tell you is why, by the way, you shouldn't join the hordes of people who rushed to Trader Joes yesterday after it was announced that Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay won a double gold at the California State Fair wine competition (most every Trader Joe's is sold out of Chardonnay as a result anyway, so you're late to the game no matter what).
State and county fair medals and awards for wine are not entirely bogus, but are close enough that everyone should completely ignore them. I trust a medal from a county fair about wine, about as much as I trust my vegan friends' recommendations on what restaurants I'd enjoy in San Francisco. Which is to say, not even as far as I could throw them.
First of all, I need a show of hands from the folks that actually regularly go to state fairs. Now I need a show of hands for people who have actually watched any of the judging of competitions that goes on at these state fairs. Now I need a show of hands of people who have actually entered things into these competitions.
I'm betting there aren't a lot of hands raised out there, but I'll tell you what. Mine is. I've spent an awful lot of time at state and county fairs in my day, so listen up: the so called "competitions" that take place at these fairs and the awards they give out are exercises in mediocrity and the constraints of a limited playing field.
The primary reasons why no one should ever pay attention to an award given to a wine by some sort of fair:
1. While some of the biggest fairs actually get professional wine critics and winemakers to be judges, many of the judges for these wine competitions are simply folks who just work in the industry, or even worse, sometimes are just people who "enjoy" wine.
2. Every fair I've been to has got about 1000 different categories of competition for each general area of judging. Entrants don't compete for the best wine, or the best red wine, they compete for the best Zinfandel, or maybe even worse, the best old vine Zinfandel. This matters because...
3. Often times there are only a few entries in each category. These competitions are not demonstrations of the best products or talent out there, they are demonstrations of choosing among the best of the (sometimes awful) products entered. While on occasion I have seen fairs decline to give out awards when there are an egregiously small number of entrants (say, less than three) but generally they give out an award no matter what. So winning a gold medal can be simply a matter of being the least crappy entrant in a field of three.
4. Did I mention that the only wines that get evaluated are wines that are deliberately entered by potential competitors? This is a problem at ALL such wine competitions, no matter where they are. The title of "best wine" at such and such competition should NEVER be given much credence by consumers since we have no idea who that wine was competing with. At state and county fairs, this is a huge problem, as it is very unlikely that any category of wine has a "representative" sample of wines to judge against.
5. Oh, did I mention that the wines sent to these competitions are sent by the wineries themselves. You only need to see what happened at the New Zealand Cuisine wine awards to understand the issues with this approach. And can you believe that the folks at the New Zealand competition actually test the wines that are sent to them against samples purchased from retail store shelves to make sure they are the same? Guess how often the California State Fair has ever done that? Right. Never, ever, ever. If you think that every winery simply just pulls a random bottle out of one of their cases that is destined for Joe's Liquor Mart to send to these wine competitions, I've got a bridge in Napa to sell you.
So far be it for me to deny Fred Franzia his upset victory, and the last thing I would want to do is imply that he sent extra special wine to the competition.
But I do want to say that I tend to agree with my friend Jack, who expressed his amazement at the news to me this way: "They should just fire all those judges and start over."
Wineries, stop bragging about your medals and start telling people interesting things about you and your wine, and how and why you make it. Consumers, do yourself a favor and ignore any piece of wine marketing that talks about fair medals. Though you might start noticing the very limited overlap between wines that get scores or good reviews by any wine critic (take your pick) and those that get medals. Coincidence? Well, let's just say that you don't see really good restaurants setting up booths at county fairs for a reason. They don't have to.
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Clothing is our modern day calling card. It establishes who we are before anyone even meets us. It lets people know what kind of mood we are in: jeans and a tee = relaxed, suit = business, fun dress = flirty.
Considering their importance, why are our wardrobes so neglected?
Treated with less than the greatest care? Smooshed together so tight we can't get out the shirt we want to wear? Tossed to the floor of our closets and walked on? Or worse, pushed to the back and forgotten?
Because your closet isn't working for you. Here are five reasons why:
1. Your closet lacks the basic tools.
If your closet has only hanging rods with one shelf above, then where can you possibly store shoes, handbags, folded items and more to make them accessible?
You need specific storage areas for your clothing, shoes and accessories. That's the benefit of designing a custom closet: There is a place for each and every item in your wardrobe so you're able to find the perfect look you want that day.
2. You haven't layered your closet.
Layering is practical (items are organized and easy to find) as well as aesthetic (separate storage prevents a cluttered look).
Like book ends, shelf dividers curtail floppy handbags. Bins and baskets on shelves corral scarves while streamlining the overall look. Instead of letting drawers be dumping grounds, inserts contain & separate items. (No more rummaging through balled up tights or wrinkled workout wear.)
Of course, you want jewelry neatly stored in a jewelry drawer or box. But a few pieces artfully draped across a small dish can accessorize a countertop. Now, finish the layering with a favorite picture. With that done, you'll want to take the plunge to matching hangers.
3. You think everything has to stay.
If you think about how much your home costs per square foot, then apply that to your closet. For example, at $100/square foot, you are looking at valuable real estate. Only the most valuable clothing items, ones that you love and that love you back, should remain.
Get a friend and start pruning! There's a lucky someone out there ready to love those discards that you don't wear anymore.
4. You don't know what should stay and what should go.
Use the turn of the seasons from summer to fall and from winter to spring to take a good long look at your wardrobe. This will help you flip your closet for the new season and remind you of what you have and what you don't.
Ten pairs of flip flops are not the best use of space if it's 20 below and snowing where you live! Make sure that you have basics for every season and then part with the unneeded extras or duplicates.
5. Your discards never get discarded.
Find a place to tuck a shopping bag in your closet. When you try something on and discover you don't care for it anymore, tuck it in your donation bag. When the bag is full, drop it off at the donation center. Editing was never so easy.
Which of the 5 problems above is keeping your closet from being your best friend? What's the worst thing about your closet?
As a design consultant at California Closets Dallas-Ft. Worth, an organizational coach, and a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), Leticia Pfeiffer brings her passion for organization to all of her California Closets designs. She works diligently to accommodate each client's unique belongings into their custom design because she believes, "Life is Better Organized!"