The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Plan to increase use of energy efficient pumpsets

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Plan to increase use of energy efficient pumpsets

Staff Reporter

Most pumping systems have excessive operating costs as they use more energy than they should

— Photo: K. Ananthan

Promoting efficiency: Dr. Ajay Mathur (third from left), Director General, Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Ministry of Power, Government of India, releases a CD containing the conference proceedings at the National Conference on Pumps in Coimbatore on Friday. C.R. Swaminathan (second from right), Chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry, Southern Region, receives the first copy. President of Indian Pump Manufacturers’ Association V. Krishnakumar (left), event chairman and President of SIEMA Jayakumar Ramdass, (second left), and the Chairman of CII, Coimbatore Zone, Ravi Sam (right), are in the picture.

COIMBATORE: Tools that will help consumers choose energy-efficient pumps and pumping systems can be developed jointly by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and the industrial associations, Ajay Mathur, Director General of the BEE, Union Ministry of Power, said here on Friday.

Inaugurating a two-day conference on “Energy Efficiency in Pumping Systems”, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Southern India Engineering Manufacturers’ Association (SIEMA) and the Indian Pump Manufacturers’ Association (IPMA), he said a set of tools - technical and financial – could be developed and information on these could be reached to the public through the internet or training programmes.

The BEE conducted several training programmes and the associations could join hands with it to organise select programmes in places that had large number of users.

Speaking about the BEE programmes to bring about energy efficiency in pumps, he said the objective was to create and expand the pilot programmes to more areas.

C. R. Swaminathan, Chairman of the CII – Southern Region, said the major sectors that consumed energy were buildings, houses and industries. Pumping systems were an important segment using energy in all these sectors. The critical aspect of energy efficiency in a pumping system was matching of pump sets to load. Most pumping systems had excessive operating costs as they used more energy than they should.

He recommended conducting efficiency tests on priority pumps in a plant, identifying misapplied or over-sized pumps, estimating energy saving and determining the cost effectiveness of each improvement. It was imperative to optimise pumping systems and energy saving programmes.

According to Jayakumar Ramdass, the SIEMA President, with industrialisation and the economy growing at a rapid pace for the last five years, the consumption of electricity had gone up and almost every state was facing power shortage.

Though the State Governments were planning numerous power projects, the demand was high. Added to this were problems of distribution and transmission loss.

The solution was to ensure that the existing equipment were energy efficient. The quality of power should be improved, he said. V. Krishnakumar, President of the Indian Pump Manufacturers’ Association, said the demand for agricultural pumps would go up only when agricultural sector was given sops by the State Governments.

Apart from financing by bankers, electrification in rural areas should be expedited. When a State Government gave new service connections to farmers, the demand for agricultural pumps would go up. Maximum power was consumed by agricultural pumps.

The Government was introducing energy saving measures to this sector. “However, what is needed is efficiency in the pumping systems,” he said. Ravi Sam, Chairman of the CII, Coimbatore Zone, welcomed the gathering.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu