Energy efficient behaviours are not a one-day thing. They have to become a part of our behaviour repertoire. Energy Conservation leads to reduction in demand for energy by cutting down the wastage – switching off the lights when leaving the room, optimizing use of ACs, cycling /walking to work instead of driving etc. Energy Efficiency is about making conscious choices in favour of technologies that lead to the higher outputs for lower energy consumption as compared to inefficient technologies. Mr. Baroruchi Mishra, Group CEO, NET Enterprise speaks to Power Times in an exclusive interview on the International Day of Light.
NET Enterprise is a leading EPMC, PMC and Engineering services provider in oil & gas, and energy transition areas such as biofuels, carbon capture, green hydrogen and plastic circulatory.
Power Times: How can individuals and businesses contribute to energy conservation and efficiency on the International Day of Light?
Baroruchi Mishra: I would say making choices in favour of energy efficient behaviours is not a one-day thing. They have to become a part of our behaviour repertoire.
Both lead to a lower demand for energy – fossil fuels in particular, and therefore, directly contribute to lower carbon emissions. Energy Sector is responsible for three quarters of global emissions. According to the International Energy Agency, Energy Efficiency has to be the “first fuel”. Energy Efficiency can lead to 40% of the emissions abatement needed by 2040 to stay within the 2 degree C scenario. The India Bureau of Energy Efficiency estimates that energy efficiency schemes and programmes have resulted in reduction of ~6% of the total primary energy supply of India.
There is a lot of research that has gone into understanding why people make choices that they do even if those choices do not favour reduction in the energy consumption. Behaviour change needs behavioural intervention.
Power Times: Can you provide examples of practical steps people can take to conserve light and energy in their daily lives or workplaces?
Baroruchi Mishra: Simple practical steps can help to conserve light and energy:
Government of India has been propagating the use of LED light bulbs under its UJALA scheme. Typically, changing the incandescent or halogen light bulbs to LED could lead to 90% reduction in energy consumptions; and they last longer.
- Using switches with movement sensors, which automatically switch off lights when no one is in the room, is a good method to conserve electricity in the office.
- Depending upon the type of the Air Conditioner, 1 degree C increase in the thermostat setting (say from 23 degree C to 24 degree C) could lead to 3-5% reduction in the energy consumption for a typical eight hrs period.
- The mental barrier against the use of public transport has to go. According to a report published in a leading daily in 2017, roughly $200 million worth of fuel and $600 million person-hours are wasted every year due to traffic jams in Bangalore. If we count the productivity loss, the total value lost could be about $0.5 billion every year. This figure would have doubled by now!
- Use of public transport like metros can help avoid some amount of this colossal loss.
- Walking to work / biking to work/ car pool etc. are simple ways to reduce energy use.
- Smarter driving: When someone asks, at what speed do we save the maximum fuel, the answer has to be simple – at 0 kmph per hour! Do not drive if you can figure out a way to get from point A to point B through acceptable means!
That said, where road traffic would allow, keeping the speed in the 55-80 kmph range leads to the lowest fuel consumption for most categories of fossil fuel driven cars. Other factors like proper tyre pressure, air resistance due to rolled down windows, and driver behaviours would also influence but the 55-80 kmph range of speed is optimal.
Power Times : How can educational initiatives help raise awareness about the importance of energy conservation without specific promotion?
Baroruchi Mishra: Right narrative is the key to raising awareness. This should highlight the “why” elements of energy conservation and energy efficiency. Then comes the “what, “how” and “by whom” and “by when”. Thought-through answers to these key questions would help frame the right narrative.
While creating the narrative, enough research needs to go into understanding the target groups, their motivations to change, or not, towards energy conservation/ energy efficient behaviours. It is important to understand that behavioural change comes about by following the “ABC” model (Antecedents, Behaviours, and Consequences) of behaviour change.
A: Antecedents – All actions/efforts/contexts that precede behaviour change are the antecedents of our behaviour. These could be:
- How well is the narrative on energy conservation and energy efficiency framed and how well is the target audience made aware of it? Does the narrative have relatable elements in it or is it an esoteric verbiage? Can people relate to the message? For example, is it being made clear how energy conservation helps save money, reduces carbon footprints and climate change impacts.
- How is the social media being used to spread the narrative?
- What trainings are being imparted to help the target group adopt energy conserving or energy efficient behaviours? Are there impactful visuals that are being used to catch the attention of the constituents?
- Awareness of the policy frameworks that encourage energy conservation helps. Easy access to all tenets and benefits of the campaign to change behaviours is very important.
B: Behaviours – Objective, data-based observations of individual behaviours that either support energy conservation and energy efficiency (+ve behaviours) or go against them (-ve behaviours) and playing them back to the individual, is an important element of behaviour change.
Creating a feedback loop on how a particular behaviour pattern affects energy conservation or energy efficiency is of tremendous value in behaviour change. Non-judgemental feedback to individuals is the best type of intervention we can make when we see them behave in a manner that does not promote energy conservation or energy efficiency.
I have a personal example. We have installed a 10 MW per year capacity rooftop Solar Panel at our house in the Netherlands. I can read the amount of electricity generated from these solar panels on my mobile app in real time. This serves as a good feedback on an energy efficient behaviour (installing the rooftop solar) and an information to act on. It has now encouraged us to plan the installation of batteries and heat pumps to be more energy efficient.
Additionally, based on this information, we figured out that if we could run our dishwasher and washing machine around mid-day when the sun was shining and the electricity generation was showing the maximum on the mobile app, then we would save on our electricity bills.
Just getting the electricity generation patterns on the app (which is anyways intuitive i.e. higher generation during the midday if the sun was shining) helped us make this simple behavioural change and we decided to run our washing machine and dishwasher at midday.
C: Consequences : A consequence is an observable effect that occurs after the behaviour ; it is caused by the behaviour. Positive consequences reinforce the behaviour. Negative consequences can help modify the behaviour.
Are the positive consequences for good energy conserving behaviours and negative consequences for the obverse, well understood? One example is lower electricity tariff for lower consumption up to the cut-off usage and higher tariff as the consumption exceeds the cut-off.
However, for the uber-rich, differential tariffs are at best a weak consequence or indeed of no-consequence. In such situations, other types of positive consequences that are associated with fulfilling the esteem needs of the individuals seem to work – making such individuals brand ambassadors of the energy saving campaigns and featuring their efforts on social media etc.
These help with enrolling them subconsciously into the theme; when they see themselves behaving in particular ways which is appreciated by the society, they start to like their behaviours and may eventually internalize it.
IEA also suggest similar themes when it proposes the use of four levers to raise awareness about the importance of energy conservation:
- Getting the message right
- Getting the message across
- Combining information with behavioural insights
- Campaigns for a crisis context
Power Times : What are some effective strategies for integrating energy-saving solutions into existing infrastructure seamlessly and efficiently?
Baroruchi Mishra: I would say strategies around creation of Green Buildings (or converting existing ones using Green Building concepts) would help very significantly with energy conservation. Individuals are likely to spend 90% of their lives inside building and so this sector can make the highest contribution to energy conservation. Therefore, to me the strategies that immediately come to mind are:
- Digitalization to promote optimal use of energy will be key to ensuring seamless conservation.
- The choice between “build and lease” needs to be understood and implemented keeping life-cycle energy use in mind.
- Use of supply chains with green credentials are key to energy saving solutions.
- Innovative architectural designs, which optimally use the nature – sun (for heat and light), wind (tunnel effects to drive micro wind turbines in the building layout or at high points in the building) and water (from water harvesting), will be key to this theme.
It is pertinent to mention here that for India, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency provides regular updates on the government strategies. One of their reports – Impact of Energy Efficiency Measures For The Year 2021-22, which lists out the various programs like the Green Building Rating Program, UJALA (for LED bulbs etc.) and many more, is very informative. It would be good to have a read through for awareness so that we can spread the message.
Power Times : Looking ahead, what role do you envision NET playing in driving advancements in energy conservation and promoting a sustainable future?
Baroruchi Mishra: We envisage three ways in which we can help
1. Digitalization: Through our Digitalization solutions, we are keen to help our clients to
- create an efficient asset with high productivity (low downtime) through remote data monitoring and data analytics & diagnostics
- embark on a data-driven decision making which removes biases in decision-making and lends itself to making the business processes more efficient.
- optimize (read reduce) cost of operations,
- reduce carbon-footprint of the facility by helping understand the carbon intensity of individual processes in the operating facility
- reduce brownfield engineering hours and optimize design to make it fit for purpose in quick time by use of Digital Twins, which NET can create for its clients.
2. Energy Efficiency Audits:
Besides digitalization, we can work with our clients to carry out energy audits to understand sub-optimal energy use and engineer mechanism for improving energy efficiency of their processes/ overall facilities; for example, we can design and implement the waste-heat recovery from turbine exhausts, engineer modifications to existing flare systems to get to Zero Flare etc.
3. Technology Choice: And lastly, for Green-Field projects (and for some Brownfield projects which have equipment change out scopes), our teams can suggest equipment / technology choices that increase energy efficiency.
