Workshops on 'Energy Consumption and Conservation Opportunities' in Panchkula Engineering and Panipat Textile Clusters
TERI with support from Shakti Sustainable Energy foundation (SSEF) is undertaking a project to collate energy data and develop cluster profile reports of selected energy intensive MSME clusters in the highly industrialized states of Haryana, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. In order to initiate the project activities and interact with key stakeholders, cluster level workshops were organized by TERI in collaboration with Haryana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI) on 4 April 2016 at Panchkula and on 7 April 2016 at Panipat. The workshop were attended by over 100 participants including senior representatives of HCCI, leading textile/home furnishing/engineering units, MSME Development Institutes, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC), leading industry associations, and consultancy organizations. The workshops helped generate awareness among stakeholders about the energy conservation opportunities for the units and the schemes/incentives available to adopt new energy efficient technologies.
In their opening remarks, chairpersons of HCCI Panchkula/Panipat spoke on TERIs continued efforts to enhance awareness on energy conservation in the region and thanked SSEF for its support. They expressed the need for industry to upgrade their units by adopting new technologies with support from specialized agencies like TERI. Sharing experiences of energy efficiency improvements in his plant, Mr Satish Gupta, Past President, HCCI spoke on the importance of energy audit as a starting point and how his unit has benefitted from the audit that TERI has conducted in his plant in the recent past.
Mr Upinder Singh Dhingra, Associate Fellow, TERI delivered presentations on the importance of energy mapping in MSME clusters, various projects undertaken by TERI for energy data mapping in MSME clusters, SAMEEEKSHA knowledge sharing platform and its activities, and the newly developed graphical interface on the SAMEEEKSHA website-the 'MSME map of India'. Prior to the workshops, experts from TERI conducted visits to selected engineering/textile units in both clusters to understand the energy consumption areas/technologies employed in the units and identify possible energy conservation opportunities. The findings were presented to the participants by Mr N. Vasudevan, Senior Fellow, TERI and Mr Pawan Kumar Tiwari, Fellow, TERI. They explained in detail the energy conservation options for units that can bring significant energy savings. Participants were urged to adopt best operating practices (BOPs) and use optimum capacity as well as high efficiency motors (IE2/IE3) in their plants to reap huge energy savings.
Apart from TERI, senior officers of MSME-Development Institute, Karnal and SIDBI delivered presentations on various schemes/incentives offered by DCMSME/SIDBI to extend financial support to MSMEs to adopt energy efficient technologies. The workshops generated enormous response from the participants, many of whom expressed keen interest to improve energy efficiency of their plant. Many participants informed that their energy bill per month is in lakhs and urged TERI to undertake energy efficiency studies in their units at reasonable charges.