The Hindu : National : National rating system planned for energy-friendly buildings

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Monday, Nov 05, 2007
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National rating system planned for energy-friendly buildings

Sujay Mehdudia

For main streaming the sustainable habitat
Incentives to developers based on their ratings

NEW DELHI: Seeking to set in place a rating system for upcoming buildings in the country, the government is soon to come up with a national rating system for green buildings, GRIHA. A memorandum of understanding has been entered into with the Tata Energy and Research Institute (TERI) to develop and operationalise this system.

This concept has been conceived and developed with the vision of main streaming the sustainable habitat. The ministry will constitute the Technical Advisory Committee (TEC) to guide modifications if required and this will be made applicable to all buildings typologies and across climatic zones. The National Advisory Council will provide advice and give directions to the national rating system.

In addition to this, Government is contemplating incentives to developers of energy-efficient buildings, based on a rating mechanism to be developed by TERI.

According to Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Secretary V. Subramaniam, the Ministry was partnering with TERI for developing a rare rating system for upcoming structures in India. “We are contemplating incentives to the developers based on their ratings,” he added. He said the incentives could be in the form of tax breaks in property tax for the proposed structures.

TERI’s Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) is a voluntary scheme that will evaluate the environmental performance of a building over its entire life cycle. The mechanism is based on inputs from the upcoming mandatory voluntary building codes being developed by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources, Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Bureau of Indian Standards.

Evaluation

The India-specific rating system would facilitate design, construction, operation and evaluation of environment-friendly buildings.

The system would ascertain greenness of new commercial, residential and institutional buildings, TERI Associate Director Mili Majumdar said.

She said the rating system would be extended to existing structures later on.

The rating would be carried out by an evaluation panel comprising eminent professionals.

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