The Zed path makes sense to your wallet too

CEO and co-founder of Biodiversity Conservation India Limited (BCIL), Chandrashekar Hariharan, in a conversation with DNA, offers suggestions on the building of ‘green’ homes in Bangalore that could make better use of Zed (zero energy driven) technology.

What is Zed technology? And how relevant is it to Bangalore?
Our use of fossil energy has risen dramatically in the last 50 years. All species on earth depend on sunlight as the only energy to sustain life, except human beings. We use 3,000 calories for food, but use an average of 1,00,000 calories from coal, gas, and oil to sustain a lifestyle that could be quite luxurious. Zed (zero-(fossil) energy development) is the path of minimising the use of fuel. Remember, if you use up all fossil energy, you will destroy all life on earth, and also reduce the chances for human survival. After all, human beings are just one of the nearly eight million species that inhabit the planet.

As the fastest-growing city in India, Bangalore has a special role in the conservation of energy. In just 20 years, it has joined the league of mega-cities with a 10-million population. There are less than 25 such cities in the world. If we don’t reverse directions now, the city will run into a series of crises — water, energy, untreated waste, and city-level warming — that will eventually drive people away.

What solutions can people incorporate while constructing new homes?
Going the ‘Zed way’ is possible and affordable in every home. It can be done in new homes as well as in existing homes with retrofit solutions that don’t cost much. Old incandescent bulbs and fluorescent tube lights can be changed to CFL and LED lamps for about Rs2,000. In the long run, individual homes can save as much as Rs250 in the monthly electricity bill. The city would save up to 300 million units of energy that way. That is about 20% of the total energy that the city consumes annually. What is more, each individual home would be able to make good its ‘investment’ in about a year. Also, a rainwater harvesting system can meet about 20% of our water needs every year.
 
Are eco-friendly homes costly?
Just as an example, if you are building a new home, the electrical contractor will ask you to pay the electrical deposit. If you told the contractor that you didn’t want conduits and electrical cabling for geysers, the ‘demand load’ for his application will drop by 4kw. Between the deposit per kilowatt payable to Bescom and the cost of cabling that the contractor will charge you, you will spend about Rs15,000 on just geyser points. Use that money to buy a solar water heater system instead, with a small add-on cost. It could save you Rs6,000 each year.