About the Programme
The building sector in India is experiencing unprecedented growth and is likely to add about 35 billion m² of new floor area by 2050. Providing thermal comfort, reliable electricity, nutritional food, and access to vaccines to all its citizens is a key challenge and also a pressing priority. This offers emerging opportunities for more future ready buildings and habitable communities – with ambitious building energy codes, net-zero energy and net-zero carbon buildings, low-energy cooling innovations, energy-efficient and smart appliances, and sustainable cold-chain infrastructure for horticulture and vaccines.
The team at AEEE strives to advance energy efficiency, equity, and visibility of energy in buildings by undertaking cutting-edge research and analysis, supporting policy implementation, market transformation, and creating tools and other knowledge products.
Strategic focus areas
Sustainable Cold-chain
Promote sustainable cold-chain development for reducing food loss, ensuring food security and farmers welfare
- Mapping low-carbon and affordable technologies with sector needs and gaps
- Evidence-based solutions through lighthouse projects
- Scaling-up deployment through innovative business models and financing
- Awareness and capacity-building of stakeholders on cold chain system
- Integrating decarbonisation and energy efficiency guidelines and standards in the policy and financing framework
Sustainable Cooling & Refrigeration
Facilitate thermal comfort, well-being, and food security for India, while creating a low carbon and resilient infrastructure
Space Cooling Technology
Strive towards India’s thermal comfort needs by promoting innovation, deployment and market adoption of advanced and energy efficient space cooling technologies.
- Inform and guide the policy discourse on cooling.
- Facilitate establishment of cooling excellence centres and knowledge hubs
- Scaling-up manufacturing and deployment through business models and financing
- Behavioural changes for responsible energy consumption
- Technical research on novel cooling technology solutions
Low Carbon Built Environment
Enable pathways toward India’s net zero commitment through climate resilient and efficient built environment in buildings and communities
- Passive and low carbon building design ensuring thermal comfort
- Embodied and operational carbon management solutions in the built environment
- Facilitate implementation of national and state building energy codes
- Building construction materials and technologies assessment
Flagship programmes
Preserving Quality and Freshness of Horticulture Produce Using Passive Cooling Solutions
Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE) with Sahaja Samrudha Organic Producer Company (SSOPCL), Bengaluru, is revolutionizing the preservation of horticulture produce with an innovative zero-energy passive cooling solution, Subjee-Cooler, from RuKart.
Facing a 5% rejection rate for leafy green vegetables at the point of sale, SSOPCL deployed five Subjee-Coolers with the support of AEEE in March 2023, successfully cutting rejection rates in half. This cost-effective, zero-energy passive cooling solution ensures the freshness of leafy greens for 2-3 days, significantly reducing post-harvest losses. With Subjee-Coolers in place, the Sahaja team witnessed a remarkable drop in monetary losses for leafy greens, from Rs 51,000 to Rs 7,000 over six months.
National Energy Efficient Fan Program
Ceiling fans are an essential appliance in India’s hot, sub-tropical environment. They are a lifeline for the Indian people, providing affordable thermal comfort to billions of people. Fans can account for up to 50% of the monthly energy bills of a household. Although the market for ceiling fans in India is large and growing, with an annual sales volume of 50 million, only about 5% choose to use energy-efficient fans, which represents untapped energy-saving potential.
Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a joint venture of Public Sector Undertakings under the Ministry of Power, launched its ground-breaking National Energy Efficient Fans Programme (NEEFP). This initiative aims to distribute 10 Million energy efficient BLDC fans through bulk procurement. The economies of scale will help drive down the manufacturing and delivery costs of energy-efficient ceiling fans.
The initiative aims to offer participating customers a bespoke procurement, installation, and post-installation service for deployment at scale. Aggregating demand from customers for the purpose of bulk procurement while meeting the requirements as per the unique needs of the customers is the hallmark of the initiative. AEEE is supporting EESL to aggregate the demand of 2.5 Million energy efficient fans at scale through a strategic MoU between the organizations.
India Cooling Coalition
India Cooling Coalition (ICC) is a multi-stakeholder group engaged extensively in sustainable cooling research and application. The platform aims to strategically mitigate the developmental challenges in line with various national and international commitments like India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP), the Kigali Amendment, Paris Agreement, and Sustainable Development Goals.
SAHARA
Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE), in partnership with Symphony Ltd., initiated the first-of-its-kind pilot “SAHARA programme”, a programme for Supporting Affordable Heat Action for Resilient Academic Institutions in India. The programme aims to mainstream super-energy efficient, affordable and sustainable space cooling solutions in India’s academic Institutions to bring in systemic changes and ensure Thermal Comfort for a Billion Lives (TCBL).
Scaling-up Investment in Clean and Efficient Cold-chain in India
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in partnership with Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE) and Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), is implementing the project ‘Scaling-up Investment in Clean and Efficient Cold-chain in India’ funded by the Clean Cooling Collaborative. The focus of the cold-chain support programme is to work with the state government and key cold-chain stakeholders to accelerate sustainable, market-linked and integrated agricultural cold-chain development.
Facilitating Sustainable Cold-chain Development in Uttar Pradesh
AEEE, in collaboration with the Department of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Uttar Pradesh), initiated a programme on India’s subnational climate action in Uttar Pradesh. The programme aims to facilitate the development of low-carbon, energy-efficient development through sectoral interventions in buildings, industries and cold-chains. In the cold-chain sector, AEEE has narrowed its focus to modernising existing cold stores and initiated a programme, SANKALP (Sheetgrih Shashaktikaran aur Naveenikaran ki Pehel).
Must Read
Retrofit and Modernize: A way forward for revamping legacy cold storages in India
Agriculture, one of the most important sectors of the Indian economy, has seen phenomenal growth in the production of perishable commodities, including horticulture produce. Among the horticulture crops, Uttar Pradesh was India’s largest potato producing state, followed by West Bengal, where 13.16 million metric tonnes (MMT) of potatoes were produced in 2019-20. However, investment for cold chain development in India, particularly West Bengal, undermines the importance of a climate-friendly uninterrupted cold chain as an essential requirement for the potato value chain.
