Ways to boost energy efficiency discussed

 Hyderabad: Managing Director for Climate and Energy at Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) Roland Hwang met Municipal Administration Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar on Monday and discussed issues relating to advancing building energy efficiency and electric mobility. 

Anjali Jaiswal, senior director at Prima Madan, Prof Rajkiran, an energy expert with NRDC’s Indian Programme, Sandeep Sai from the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) and Dr Vishal Garg from IIIT also attended the meeting. 
The discussion was focused on advancing building energy efficiency through updates to the State Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC).
 
The Principal Secretary asked the delegation, which comprised leading international and local experts on energy efficiency, to suggest a Statewide Cool Roof programme and also a programme to retrofit around 100 government buildings. The proposal should be made mandatory for all the new residential buildings, commercial establishments and government buildings to have cool rooftops, he said. Increasing the scope and potential for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure in the state, as part of the draft State Electric Vehicle policy, was also discussed in the meeting. 

The principal secretary suggested that the draft electric vehicle policy should insist that e-vehicles should replace all the existing vehicles. A beginning should be made with public transport vehicles and garbage mini-vans. Roland Hwang briefed about the net-zero concept prevalent in California.