Government sets up Energy Conservation Panel

HYDERABAD: With an intent to save at least 20 per cent of the energy consumed in Andhra Pradesh, the state government is mulling a massive programme to narrow down the gap between power demand and supply.The government has constituted a high level energy conservation committee to promote awareness by the order of principal secretary (energy) Sutirtha Bhattacharya. The committee aims to ensure conservation in the use of air-conditioners, refrigerators and other domestic appliances.The chairman of the committee will be AP Eastern Power Distribution Company Ltd (APEPDCL) chairman Nadeem Ahmed. Members will be APCPDCL director P Rajagopala Reddy, APSPDCL director (operations) S Viswanatham, APNPDCL director (operations) P Ganapathi, NREDCAP project director N Ram Mohan Rao and member secretary ECC energy department A Chandra Sekhara Reddy. It is said that the possible energy saving potential in various sectors are 7 per cent in industries, 4.5 per cent in agriculture, 6 in domestic, 1 in commercial, 1 in public lighting and 0.5 per cent in others.AP has an installed capacity of 14,938.24 mw comprising 10,168.48 mw from thermal and natural gas, 3,790.36 from hydel, 936.56 mw renewable energy and 43.27 mw from nuclear. Though the state generated 26,927 million units of thermal and 7,821 million units of hydel and renewable, the growing demand of industry, domestic and agriculture sector had led to a 10 per cent more demand than supply. The committee will review the implementation of various initiatives being undertaken at present and submit its recommendations to government within two months. The committee will also recommend long and short term measures to make energy conservation initiatives more effective and sustainable.The measures that the government has initiated include replacement of incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamps for around 1.8 crore domestic consumers at a nominal price of `15 as against a market price of `90 each. Implementation of this scheme is likely to result in energy consumption being reduced by around 20 per cent, an official press release said on Sunday.