Impact on Cooling Demand with Building Efficiency Programme

The Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) is an initiative taken by the Government of India to promote energy efficiency in the commercial building sector. The ECBC is a comprehensive code that provides minimum requirements for the energy efficient design and construction of buildings, and is is applicable to new commercial buildings with states defining the scope according to the state’s suitability. The code is based on energy savings without compromising on the comfort parameters of its occupants, and has three incremental levels of building energy performance namely ECBC, ECBC Plus and Super ECBC. On average, an ECBC compliant building is 25% better energy performance than a typical conventional building whereas ECBC Plus has 35% and Super ECBC has 50% better performance.

In this context, the Maharashtra Energy Development Agency (MEDA) building was designed to address the energy efficiency concerns and demonstrate to the public a climate-responsive and sustainable building that can comply with the super ECBC norms, GRIHA 5-star and NZEB requirement without compromising on the aesthetics and functionality. This reduced cooling requirement by 30-40% and reduced energy consumption by 35%.