BEE plans ‘energy conservation building code’ for residential units

KOLKATA: The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) is planning to introduce ‘energy conservation building code’ for residential buildings to help reduce domestic consumption.
“The codes would include design instructions like what sort of bricks to use and how rooms should be planned. At present we have an energy conservation building code for commercial complexes like malls, institutions and office buildings. The plan is to tweak these codes to suit residential complexes,” Abhay Bakre, director general of BEE, told media persons on the sidelines of a conference organised by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kolkata on Thursday.

He said the code being formulated may be adopted by states as construction is controlled by them.

The bureau has been working with household equipment manufacturers including air-conditioner makers for bringing down domestic and commercial power consumption. It hopes to achieve power savings of 40 GW by 2030 with the help of stricter conservation norms for ACs. In 2017-18 about 70 lakh cooling appliances were sold, and the number is likely to rise to 1.5 crore in athe next five-six years.