Thursday, February 27, 2014: With the growth of the clean energy initiatives and the JNN Solar Mission, India is stepping-in to join the global trend of adopting green technology for commercial premises. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on Tuesday, dedicated India’s first ‘zero net energy’ building to the nation.
The building has an installed capacity of 930 KW (peak power) and is called the Indira Paryavaran Bhawan. It has the largest roof-top solar system among the multi-storied buildings in India. The Bhawan is located on Jorbagh Road in the capital city and has provisions to accommodate nearly 600 people and their offices under the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
It is to be noted that many countries in Europe are using green technology to cut their ‘carbon foot-prints’, to implement a cleaner environment generation. Indira Paryavaran Bhawan was constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 2.09 billion. The zero net energy building, also called, the Net Zero Building is a design that harbours no energy consumption and the total amount of energy used is completely sourced from renewable resources. The premise uses almost equal amount of energy as the amount of renewable energy produced by the building.
The solar system at the roof-top of the Paryavaran Bhawan has been generating power since November, last year. The electricity that was generated is being fed to the local grid of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). The building is designed to capture 75 per cent of natural daylight, and is further utilised to reduce energy consumption.
The total energy savings of nearly 40 per cent have been achieved by ‘Chilled Beam’ system of Air Conditioning, where air conditioning is done by convection currents rather than air flow through diffusers, and chilled water is circulated right up to the diffuser points unlike the conventional systems.
The building further has an earthquake resistant structure with a total plinth area of 31,488 sqm. and covers only 30 per cent of the total land area. More than 50 per cent area, outside the building, is a soft area with plantation and grassing, including roads and pathways to enable ground water harvesting.
