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REPORT

Emergence of energy labeling in India

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency has launched energy labelling for refrigerators, tubular fluorescent lamps and air-conditioners. The schedule of products to be targetted next include: compact fluorescent lamps, general purpose electric motors, ceiling fans,and ballasts for fluorescent lamps, to be followed by geysers, gas stoves etc.

India is in the midst of an energy crisis resulting from booming economic growth that has led to rapid growth in the use of energy. The rate of economic development of a country is directly linked with the supply of energy. An affordable, reliable supply of energy is vital for continued economic expansion, yet the cost of new supply facilities is staggering. If energy supply capacities are expanded without promoting more efficient use of energy, the amount of capital invested will eclipse the economic growth it seeks to sustain. The simplest way out of this development challenge is to use energy more efficiently. “ Energy conserved is energy produced, ” is the slogan used the world over to raise public awareness about the importance of efficient use of energy. Electricity conservation measures are often cheaper than building new power plants. Using more efficient lights and appliances, agricultural and industrial motors, better insulation etc., can significantly reduce the energy supply needed. Across the world, people have grown conscious of the demand versus supply equation and are finding new ways to use energy judiciously.

Production risks

Production of energy by various means is also associated with many environmental problems. For example, coal power plants have local effects such as air pollution particularly nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxide. They also have medium-distance effects such as acid rain along with long-range and long-term climate change impacts such as global warming from the emission of carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gases'. Nuclear plants have their own environmental consequences related to the handling of nuclear materials and the disposal of radioactive waste. For example, some radioisotopes have half-lives of thousands of years and need to be stored in geologically stable locations. To save our environment, it is all the more necessary to adopt energy conservation measures.

Consumer awareness

Often it has been observed that there is a general lack of awareness with respect to the nature of energy conservation actions that they people can take. This is partly owing to the lack of information. By addressing this lack of information and other barriers, energy efficiency standards and energy labeling of appliances and equipment encourage the proliferation of energy-efficient systems and products for the improvement of the economy and the environment.

Enerfy-efficiency labels and standards

Energy labels (or more explicitly called energy-efficiency labels) are informative labels affixed to manufactured products to indicate the product's energy performance (usually in the form of relative rankings of energy performance, energy parameters that indicate quantitatively how much energy is consumed or the energy efficiency rating of that product and/or, other related requirements). Energy labels can stand-alone or complement energy standards.

Energy-standards are procedures and regulation that prescribe limits on the energy consumption (or minimum levels of the energy efficiency) of manufactured products. These measurements are based on prescribed test protocols/procedures that ensure accurate and consistent estimates of the energy performance. Throughout the world, standardisation has been used as an effective tool for tackling energy problems. The following criteria are generally taken into account before stipulating energy conservation requirements:

1.	It should be ensured that no stipulation on energy consumption/efficiency is made at the cost of performance or compromises safety;
2.	Wherever relevant, energy conservation should be properly weighed against material conservation, pollution etc.
3.	The parameters (e.g. kWh per year for refrigerator or energy efficiency ratio for air conditioners) used to measure energy consumption/efficiency should be reasonably easy to calculate on a consistent and accurate basis.

Significance of energy-labelling

Without a credible energy label, a consumer looking at an appliance has no idea whether a product saves energy or is an energy guzzler. The energy efficiency of an appliance is usually hidden from the naked eye, and invariably not known to the user. However, energy consumption determines the operating cost of most appliances and is therefore of concern to the consumer and his pocket. Consumers are sometimes aware of some basic details, such as wattage and act on that information, but wattage alone is no substitute for the information that an energy label provides, like lumens/watt of a lamp or the energy efficiency ratio (EER) of an air conditioner.

Like other energy efficiency programs, energy labeling aims to shift markets for energy-using products and appliances toward greater energy efficiency. Energy labelling programmers help consumers to understand which products are most efficient and hopefully influence them to choose more efficient products. At the same time, they create competition among manufacturers to produce and market the most energy-efficient models and thus promote efficiency.

Energy labelling is generally linked with the performance and safety parameters as prescribed in the national standards, and products qualified for the energy labeling are first supposed to meet these requirements, thus linking energy efficiency and high-quality performance.

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