Energy Efficiency in Residential Buildings in Mumbai, India

We are currently in a situation where the economy is crunching and energy is getting more expensive by the day. A lot of effort is being made to switch to renewable sources of energy and use it to power the grid. Extensive investment and research is being made and we can expect a complete change in paradigm over the next decade. But immediate strategies are required now to bring down our energy consumption and meet the current needs. In the United States the federal agencies were required to reduce building energy consumption per square foot by 30% in 2005 and 35% in 2010, both relative to 1985. This executive order was passed after detailed analysis and studies carried out by Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) to identify costeffective energy efficiency measures that should be implemented in these structures. This paper has conducted a study on a high rise residential construction in the metropolitan city of Mumbai in India. The energy consuming appliances and fixtures in a typical residential unit in the city are identified and then replaced with the accessible technologies using renewable energy and energy efficient fixtures. The study has targeted changes that can be carried out by a single homeowner for his/her apartment in a multistoried building. A comparison between the existing energy consumption and that computed with the modifications presents a clearer picture as to whether 30% efficiency can be achieved in an existing residential building in the heart of Mumbai, India. The results further open up the different paths that can be adopted by the government for establishing benchmarks for increasing energy efficiency of high rise residential constructions by merely educating homeowners and the end users.