Que: Shed some light on various GBCI programs, and how industries can benefit from them?

Ans: The Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) exclusively administers project certifications and professional credentials and certificates within the framework of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating systems, as well as the PEER standard for power systems, the WELL Building Standard, the Sustainable SITES Initiative (SITES), EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies), TRUE certification for zero waste, and Investor Confidence Project (ICP) for energy efficiency retrofits.

As Governments, organizations, and communities move towards pursuing a more sustainable and climate-friendly stance, GBCI delivers certifications that help industries track, and positively reduce their carbon footprint, waste, and optimize their use of natural resources to benefit the environment.

Que: You were associated with Green Buildings Programs for more than two decades, how has been the response received as compared to the initial days? How much people are aware these days?

Ans: India is one of the leading nations when it has come to adopting green buildings. Despite the ongoing pandemic, India has witnessed a 10% increase in its LEED GSM when compared to 2020, thereby highlighting its focus on pursuing sustainable growth and development. Today, people are more aware of their role in mitigating climate change. Right from the Government, State Governments and various organisations, everyone is doing their best to promote the need for climate action and ensure a healthy environment for the generations to come. In the coming years, the climate-related strategies of companies will come under increasing scrutiny from not just regulators and legal authorities but also shareholders, business partners and customers.

Que: What is the PEER program? What are the evaluation parameters of it?

Ans: PEER (Performance Excellence in Electricity Renewal) is the world’s first certification program that measures and improves power system performance and electricity infrastructure. PEER encourages the adoption of reliable, resilient, and sustainable practices, and helps utilities solve aging infrastructure, find cost savings, share best practices, build for resiliency and enhance tracking to determine and prevent failures. A PEER certification signifies that a system is resilient in the face of disasters, reliable in its ability to meet everyday needs and sustainable in a way that prioritizes efficiency and mitigates the impacts of climate risk.

PEER is a metrics-based certification program that evaluates and verifies a power system’s performance across four performance categories:

1. Reliability and resiliency
2. Energy efficiency and environment
3. Operations, management and safety
4. Grid services

Que: Which size of power systems is eligible to be assessed under the PEER program?

Ans: PEER can be used for power systems of all sizes, including campuses (ranging from a single building to an IT campus or SEZ), microgrids, critical infrastructure, an entire city’s grid, or a power distribution company (DISCOM), and even a transit system. PEER works for all types of infrastructure, and PEER-certified projects include leading hospitals, rural cooperatives, city-owned utilities, microgrids, universities and more. Currently, to name a few world-class utilities and projects in India that have adopted and benefited from PEER; we have Tata Power-DDL, Delhi Metro Rail (Yellow, Blue, Green, Violet and Pink Line), Bangalore International Airport, and Delhi International Airport.

Que: How it is beneficial in the India-specific scenario?

Ans: PEER values technologies and strategies that enable responsible grid citizenship. Projects are able to demonstrate energy cost savings, as well as a reduction in energy waste, interruptions and emissions through a variety of strategies, including:

• Islandability, which describes a facility’s ability to disconnect itself from the electric grid and continue to operate in some capacity. This usually requires some combination of onsite generation, storage and distribution infrastructure.

• Renewable energy integration focused on incorporating renewable energy, distributed generation, energy storage, thermally activated technologies, and demand response into the electric distribution and transmission system.

Similarly, the programme also highlights and provides guidance on how power producers or consumers can adopt more sustainable ways of producing or consuming electricity that improve its efficiency at every step of the value chain right from production to distribution, to consumption. In the Indian context, all these above strategies work in unison to make power systems more reliable, resilient, efficient, and green.

Que: In your view, what are the key challenges in India’s power/ grid-transmission sector?

Ans: India’s power sector has grown by leaps and bounds. The current Union Budget also focused on sunrise sectors that have a huge role to play in helping India achieve energy Independence. While the country has done well to introduce a strong push towards renewable energy; augmenting battery storage and evacuation of renewable power has to be looked at more intently to increase the efficiency and reliability of the grid. There is an urgent need to upgrade India’s grid infrastructure that can withstand vulnerabilities caused due to natural and man-made challenges. The legacy electricity grids experience high losses and frequent outages, both of which are intensified by the inability of their existing technology to communicate breakdowns in real-time. Upgrading or modernizing the grid should be the sector’s top priority to improve efficiency and make India’s vision of power for all a reality. Improving the physical reach of electricity combined with efforts to reduce energy losses due to transmission will help improve the finances of DISCOMS as well.

Que: Can you share any case study on how PEER has benefited companies in India or abroad?

Ans: Terminal 3 (T3) of Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), New Delhi, was the first campus project to get PEER Platinum certified under the PEER v2 rating system in India. En route to receiving the PEER certification, DIAL proactively took steps towards carbon emission reduction by adopting airport carbon accreditation, procuring offsite renewable power and installing onsite solar PV of 7.8 MW capacity.

PEER helped DIAL in identifying opportunities for continuous improvement, through increasing their renewable energy mix based on the Energy Efficiency and Environmental index score (A score that provides the amount of carbon being emitted by the projects power consumption), assessing and reducing their power interruptions (By global benchmarking on reliability metrics), and bringing transparency in providing quantitative and qualitative feedback on energy usage to their 680 customers through a secure online platform. Annually the project has achieved energy savings of 2.3 million units and a cost savings of INR 70 million ($ 970,000) through their energy efficiency measure and other sustainability initiatives.

Que: What will be your key suggestions on the policy front which will help in rebounding the power sector?

Ans: India has a unique energy landscape with distinct challenges. However, the introduction of the Electricity Amendments Bill 2021 is expected to refresh the sector while focusing on the customer, competition, compliance, and climate. The changes brought about by the bill can potentially make the sector more viable, transparent and investor-friendly, besides helping achieve India’s ambitious clean energy targets.

Que: What kind of support do you think would be required in order to build a workforce in this field in the country?

Ans: With the Government of India committed to achieving an ambitious target of 175 GW worth of renewable energy by the end of 2022, and 450 GW by 2030 the employment opportunities in the power sector are bright. A study by CEEW states that the renewable energy sector alone has the potential to employ 3.4 million people by installing 238 GW solar and 101 GW of new wind capacity. Many private and state-owned power companies are already running comprehensive skilling programmes for rural as well as urban youth to build a strong workforce to bridge this potential demand. From a certification point of view, GBCI is committed to helping professionals in the power and real-estate sector with relevant certifications to make the sector green and sustainable.