Energy Efficiency Services limited (EESl) formed as a joint venture between NTPC, REC, Power Finance Corporation and PowerGrid under the Ministry of Power has a taken a lead in promoting several innovative measures to save on energy demand. They are most well-known for their ‘UJAlA’ scheme where they have distributed lED lights into households via power distribution companies and worked with local municipal bodies to install lED streetlights.
Interestingly, much of the work that EESl does is fully transparent and they maintain a detailed record for UJAlA online at www.ujala.gov.in according to which it says that over 28 crore lED lights have been distributed under the scheme already saving over 37,098 million Kilowatt/Hour of electricity, saving around 7,500 Megawatts of peak demand and over 30 million tons of Carbon Dioxide emissions annually.
However, EESl works on an unique ‘pay as you save’ model explains Managing Director Saurabh Kumar. Speaking to The Pioneer, he said that they do not charge local municipal bodies anything upfront but keep a share of the revenue saved by the corporations. “This way it is not a capital expenditure that the cash-strapped body has to make but a operating cost.”
With an estimated 15,000 crore in savings in over 650 local bodies, EESl actually makes a profit annually and the municipalities are also happy. It expects turnover to touch $1.5 billion (approximately Rs 10,000 crore) by 2020 and plans an Initial Public Offering by diluting a 20 per cent stake in the second half of the 2019-20 financial year.
EESl also placed the first large order for electric vehicles a few months ago for 10,000 vehicles, a bid that was won by Tata Motors with Mahindra matching their bid. These vehicles which will be deployed by central government ministries and agencies in the national capital have started to come in, the first five cars operating for the Finance Commission.
Kumar expects the first batch of 500 vehicles to all be on the roads by the end of March and EESl has also built 300 charging stations in several government buildings to cater to these vehicles. Kumar admits that there are problems in the electric vehicle space that surround battery manufacturing and charging infrastructure.
“As of today, according to the Electricity Act only a power distributor can sell power to the end-consumer, this will need to be changed if we need to roll out a national charging network. Then of course, tariffs will need to be decided, and we also need to strengthen our manufacturing infrastructure”, he said.
The second tranche of 9,500 vehicles will be ordered from the two manufacturers shortly and EESl is also in talks with state governments in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh to change their fleets as well. The addressable fleet of government vehicles alone to move to electric-power is 500,000 cars. This alone will result in dramatic cost and emissions savings alongside providing manufacturing expertise to domestic companies.
However, with EESl taking the lead to getting the government and even providing consultancy to several private conglomerates to save energy, it is taking some extremely innovative steps towards addressing India’s energy woes from a whole new direction.