Objective

ECBC defines norms of energy performance for various building components, and takes into consideration the climatic region. The application of these norms lowers the building’s energy requirement without affecting the function, comfort, health or productivity of the occupants. 

BEE has launched a new version of code ECBC 2017 on 19^th June 2017. The newly developed code is futuristic, pragmatic and easy to implement. The new version of Code is geared to encourage public and private sectors to not only meet the basic ECBC criteria, but to exceed them as well. Long-term success of the ECBC will depend heavily on the collaborative roles that various stakeholders would play towards the development, adoption and implementation of building code.

Commercial building sector in India is expanding rapidly at over 9% per year spurred largely by the strong growth in the services sector. It has been estimated that more than 50% of building stock that will exist in the year 2030 is yet to come up in the country – a situation that is fundamentally different from developed countries. Having regard to the fact that the rate of growth in the commercial building sector is amongst the highest and this sector needs to be moderated in its energy consumption, BEE introduced the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) as a voluntary policy measure in 2007 to reduce the adverse impact of buildings on the environment.

Background

To improve the energy efficiency in the new commercial buildings, the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) was created. ECBC was launched by the Ministry of Power (MoP), Government of India, in May 2007, as the first step towards promoting energy efficiency in the commercial building sector. The Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) sets minimum energy standards for new commercial buildings having a connected load of 100 kW or contract demand of 120 kVA or more. The effective implementation of code provides comfort to occupants by adopting passive design strategies & day light Integration. It is technologically neutral, promotes renewable energy and also emphasises on the life cycle cost of building. The updated code was launched in 2017, which had additional priorities of renewable energy integration, ease of compliance, inclusion of passive building design strategies and flexibility for the designers.

ECBC 2017 is one of the first building energy codes to recognize beyond code performance. One of the major updates to the code is inclusion of incremental, voluntary energy efficiency performance levels. There are three levels of energy performance standards in the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) i.e. ECBC, ECBC Plus, Super ECBC. In ascending order of efficiency, ECBC compliant building has approx. 25% savings, ECBC+ building approx. 35% savings and compliance with Super ECBC building will show energy savings by 50% or more as compared to conventional building.

Target Beneficiaries

CPWD, Town and Country Planning, State PWDs, State Designated Agencies, UDD, Municipal corporations/ULBs, DISCOMs, Electrical Inspectorate, Architect, Engineers, Institutions/organizations, Builders, Developers

Partners

Implementation partners are: CPWD, SDAs, State PWDs, UDD.