What are the features of the Star Rating Program
Regarding the LED bulb:
- The ceiling fan continues to be a source of comfort for many people in India, even during the humid months of August and September as well as the dry heat of May.
- Policy demands and a shift in regulations are also causing the ceiling fan market to churn.
- However, the LED bulb story’s accomplishments and failures must be learned from by the fan industry.
- The energy transition in a society that has to grow responsibly in light of climate change is the policy imperative driving the transformation in the fan market.
- India needs to drastically cut the amount of energy used for economic activity in order to achieve its objective of cutting harmful emissions per unit of GDP by 45% by 2030 compared to 2005.
- According to a 2020 poll by the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW), 90% of Indian households use ceiling fans, and households utilise over a third of all the electricity consumed in India.
- According to the India Cooling Action Plan, a billion fans might be in use in India by 2038, up from the current 500 million, as average temperatures rise and incomes rise.
‘Star Rating’ programme:
- Given the significance of fans, the Standards and Labelling (S&L) programme, often known as the “star-rating” project, was made mandatory for ceiling fans in May 2022 by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), India’s energy efficiency regulator under the Union Ministry of Power.
- However, ‘5-star’ fans (the star rating) are twice as expensive as regular unrated fans, which is a significant hurdle to adoption in India’s price-conscious market.
- Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) is preparing to sell 10 million “5-star” ceiling fans as part of a demand aggregation initiative to address this issue.
- The plan aims to alter the fan business in a similar way to how the well-known Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) programme transformed the LED light sector.
- In a period of three to four years, the UJALA scheme, which was introduced in 2015, helped bring down the cost of LED bulbs from 400 to 90.
Transformational steps:
The first is to keep a technology-neutral policy:
- When a single technology specification is purchased in large quantities, demand aggregation is most effective.
- It was the nine-watt white LED bulb in the case of LEDs. Fans, however, have access to a greater range of technology, each with its own trade-offs.
- In the long term, a strategy that addresses several specifications would be more cost-effective.
- The traditional induction motor found in ceiling fans is reliable but may have energy performance restrictions.
- The only commercially available technology that, to date, matches the ‘5-star’ performance criteria is the more recent arrival, the brushless DC (BLDC) motor.
Manage the tension between quality and price reduction:
- As a result of the UJALA program’s significant pricing pressure on LEDs, lower-quality devices with higher failure rates have entered the market.
- While changing a lightbulb is simple and affordable, changing a ceiling fan is difficult and expensive.
- Consumers may lose faith in new technologies as a result of low-quality products and turn back to the old.
- Third, support domestic production of high-efficiency fans at a high level:
- New brands and manufacturers have emerged as a result of the expansion of the LED market, but India may have lost the opportunity to improve local manufacturing standards and lessen its reliance on imported parts.
- India can take use of its sizable domestic market to expand into the export market and gain economies of scale for components and finished goods.
- To keep manufacturers competitive, Indian quality and performance requirements must be updated to coincide with those from other countries.
Conclusion:
- The first significant wave of fan disturbance in decades is currently underway. Energy-efficient fans are essential to India’s transition to clean energy and can contribute to the country’s economic growth in addition to providing the vulnerable people with a necessary service for coping with periods of excessive heat with lower electricity costs.
