Energy and efficiency are the two words most Indians do not associate with energy costs reduction. The lack of awareness of power generation & distribution improvement plays a major role. The non-acceptance of better technology though proves to be a bigger challenge. With the rising development needs of India’s energy infrastructure, its energy consumption will increase threefold in the next few years as well. This situation needs to be controlled, so more space could be created for India’s energy consumption growth in the future.
This brings us to the question of how the growing energy demand will be addressed. It has been observed that small scale manufacturing industries are the ones that consume the most commercial energy in India. According to energy audits, these manufacturing units have invested insufficient efficiency improvements saving approximately 1.14 Mtoe worth of energy.
This step towards improvements reflects on the focus placed not only on India’s growing energy needs but also about promoting the use of cleaner energy generation and use. To that end, important steps have been taken by the government towards renewable energy and increasing installed capacity. Right now India has a good foundation to stand on, to eventually win the race on energy efficiency, but it requires commitment and access to newer technologies. As per reports, IoT devices coupled with AI have had significant contributions towards reducing energy consumption.
Several steps have been taken towards energy sustainability in the last few years. Yet, according to a study conducted in the SME sector, it was revealed that a large percentage of these energy audits were provided for free. This revelation only proves that the sector has not been serious in adopting new technologies to improve energy conservation. This sector is also the primary reason for India slowing down and needs to improve, to make the Indian economy energy efficient. Awareness must be promoted to bring through acceptance of new and better technology use. Only this can make India energy efficient while staying the largest consumer and manufacturer of energy.