VIJAYAWADA: The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) has come forward to turn the world renowned Tirumala temple into an energy efficient pilgrim centre. The BEE has consented to providing technical and financial support for conducting large scale Investment Grade Energy Audit (IGEA) in the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) and its allied temples and choultries from Monday.
“A Delhi-based national energy audit agency empanelled with the BEE will start the IGEA of water pump sets from Monday to find out the performance and efficiency of the existing pumps, and to list out the inefficient pump sets which require replacement,” said the AP State Energy Conservation Mission (APSECM), in a statement on Sunday.
The existing 399 pump sets have a total load of 3500 HP and it has been preliminarily assessed that replacing them with energy efficient pumps will save 20 per cent or around 1.14 million units (MU) of energy.In a preliminary energy audit conducted by the APSECM in TTD temples, it observed that energy savings through replacement of existing 38,000 fans with super efficient fans with an investment of Rs 9.5 crore will achieve 5.02 MU energy savings per annum and monetary savings of Rs 4.5 crore per annum.
Similarly, replacement of no star/single star ACs with five-star ACs and installation of AC savers for existing three-star/five-star ACs for all the existing 1,608 units with an investment of Rs 8.4 crore is estimated to achieve energy savings of 3.09 MU and monetary savings of Rs 1.85 crore per annum.
“The TTD has invited suggestions from the interested parties regarding eco-friendly initiatives,” TTD Executive Officer KS Jawahar Reddy said, according to the APSECM statement.
“We would like to make the TTD a role model in energy efficiency and water management not only in the country but also in the world,” the EO added. For the record, the TTD has a 7.5 MW windmill to generate 1 crore units with savings of Rs 5 crore per annum and 10 MW solar power plant (floor mounted) to generate 1.45 crore units per annum with an estimated annual savings of Rs 3 crore.
The TTD is also planning to go for 2 MW rooftop solar systems in all colleges/schools in Tirupati and TTD buildings in Tirumala with the support of agencies like the New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (NREDCAP) and other national institutions.
The TTD is also planning to focus on eco-friendly energy efficient electrical appliances, energy management system to monitor the functioning of electrical loads and pro-environment practices for reducing financial burden on the management, the temple authorities added.Energy Secretary Srikant Nagulapalli thanked BEE Director General Abhay Bhakre and his team for their continuous support.