Urban Energy Management

India’s cities are the engines of her economic growth. To provide an environment conducive to the buzz of economic activity that urban India must engage in, improvement of physical infrastructure has become a major objective of the planners. Energy is a vital component of urban infrastructure. Be it water supply, sewerage network, transportation, construction, manufacturing, information and communication technology (ICT) or provision of social infrastructure to enhance quality of life, energy in the form of electricity, oil and gas is an inescapable necessity to enable infrastructure development. An integrated approach for (i) providing uninterrupted supply of energy, (ii) promoting energy conservation and (iii) minimizing total energy costs would be the focus of this chapter. We don’t usually realize the extent to which we depend on various forms of energy to get through each day. Let us say, Mumbai is in the grips of a power failure for 72 hours at a stretch. What would the experience of a Mumbaiker be?1. In the first twenty four hours, the sudden break from the daily grind would probably be enjoyable. Not much work at office, one returns home early. The trains don’t run, so of course there are commuting problems and traffic snarls. But then, on the flipside, once you are home, the TV won’t disrupt peace, the neighbour’s radio won’t blare. As evening falls, not being able to tune into the news could be a bit irritating though. Candle light dinner at home could be enjoyable. But the night is stuffy, sweltering, and restless. By the second day the blackout would start affecting normal life in a serious way. The milkman may not deliver milk because pasteurization plants do not work without power; the newspaper cannot be delivered as the printing press is not functioning; the mobile phone discharges; and so does the laptop. One is nearly cut off from the outside world by now. If your landline phone works without power supply, there is probably a chance that friends and relatives may still be able to get in touch. They may even be able to reach you news about your city and your area, especially to gauge when electricity might be restored in your area. On your landline phone, you could reach your vendors for fruit and vegetable, milk and laundry. No vendor, however, is interested in climbing nine floors to reach you. By the evening, as daily household provisions run out, panic sets in. Bread, milk, dry-cell batteries, and candles are sold out by the time you make a run on the neighbourhood stores. When power will be restored becomes the topic of the day in the colony. Before the night is out, water tap runs dry and you are forced to go to bed worrying about where to fetch water from the next morning. Municipal water supply stopped on the first day itself. The morning of day three, the condition turns really bad. You are forced to eat leftover food that is beginning to rot, given that your refrigerator has not been running. You rely on your wits to put together a meal from the dry provisions available at home. The situation can turn worse if you have young children or old and ailing parents at home. Somebody needs the nebulizer. Somebody needs hot water. In the meantime your gas runs out. Isolation from the civilized world is complete.