Schneider Electric is upbeat on the growing opportunities for its products and services in the country’s smart buildings and the Government move to develop more than 100 smart cities.
The diversified multinational corporation, which has more than 30 manufacturing plants across various locations in India, is set to come out with a comprehensive catalogue for its products and services to make it easy for the customers. The company stated that it was first such initiative.
Satish Kumar, Energy Efficiency Ambassador and Vice-President, said the company has enough capacity to cater to the growing demand, but was open to bringing in additional products from its global line of products as the demand goes up.
Speaking on the sidelines of the recent Green Building Congress held here last week, along with B Thanik, Director, Strategy and Business Development, he said that the demand for smart buildings and smart cities is likely to go up as various initiatives of this come together.
The Government move to create 20 smart cities from scratch in the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor alone is likely to open up new opportunities.
With the Indian Green Building Council deciding to part ways with the US Green Building Council and coming out with its own rating system for new buildings, Satish Kumar, who is part of the founding members of IGBC new building code move and also associated with the US GBC, said that both the rating systems will co-exist in the country along with Griha, the third rating system.
While multinational corporation would possibly opt for both US GBC Leed rating system and IGBC rating, Indian companies may opt for both or stick to IGBC rating. However, the Government buildings may either stick to Griha or may even consider other rating systems too.
“At Schneider, apart from building efficient building systems, we also help customers understand the benefits of deploying energy efficiency systems and ensure demonstrate the savings. It is about how many units a building is able to save on energy consumption,” Satish Kumar said.
Explaining the power of negawatt, that is a unit of power saved, he said one negawatt saved is like four unit generated. Companies are now looking at this aspect with keenness than more than anything else. That is where energy efficiency right from planning stage becomes a means to their goals, he said.