Power audits have the potential to save costs through building energy efficiencies, ensure reliability, harmonize the energy consumption of the disparate equipment and last, but not the least, ensure safety.

IIT, Bombay, had a problem. Three years ago, they discovered that their annual power bill amounted to an astounding Rs.10 crore. One of the nation's premier centers of learning was bleeding. That got the faculty and students thinking - something wasn't right.

The problem was handed over to the first-year M.Tech students of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering to solve. They conducted a thorough power audit of the whole campus, which was designated as part of the coursework on energy management. The result of the thorough and detailed power audit was startling.

The audit and the consequent remedial measures put-in saved IIT Bombay a whopping 3,446,500 kwh of electricity and a whopping Rs. 1.75 crore annually - 17 percent of their earlier power bill. They also appointed a professional ‘energy manager' and incentivised the saving of energy by students and various study centers and hostels. The audit also had the intangible benefit of increasing safety and inculcating awareness about the need, and ways, for energy conservation.

This is what an power audit does, or has the potential to do - save costs through building energy efficiencies, ensure reliability, harmonize the energy consumption of the disparate equipment and last, but not the least, ensure safety.

Other than the trimming of capex and opex, it also brings down the carbon footprints of the company by capping harmful emissions and optimizing performance.

Unfortunately, in India, the power audit industry is at a very nascent stage. It is still a toddler which is just beginning to find its feet. So much so that companies still shy away from providing numbers of industry performance.

The reasons for their still being in their infancy are varied. Of the three 'main' three things that a power audit does - cut energy costs, advance safety, reduce pollution - all were considered, at least until recently, less than critical by both government and industry.

The price of power in India was, and still is, administered. The market did not determine its price, the state and its subordinate bodies did. And, in most cases it was heavily subsidized. Neither the industry, nor the government (one of the largest consumers of power), felt the real pinch of the cost of power. The incentive to spend on ways to reduce the costs, through a power audit, was that much less. It was only the large and heavy industries, where even a marginal decrease per unit cost would lead to a substantial overall cost savings, that a power audit was seen as adding value.

Safety, the second ingredient that is added by a power audit, is one of the most under-rated and ignored elements in India, in all walks of life - on the road, as also in industries. It is almost an alien concept. Most industries see spending on safety as waste of resources, an unnecessary evil.

It is only recently that 'going green' is thought of as getting somewhere. Like safety, it was regarded a concept that the rich countries can afford. It is only now that the lure of carbon credits and the incentives for sustainable development have begun to be factored-in by industries as value-additions.

Be that as it may, there are now signs that the market is changing, and changing fast. The government is increasingly geared to reduce its subsidy bill. More and more, including in the energy sector, the state has shown the inclination to let market influence, if not dictate, the price of a commodity or service. This will increasingly have its impact on power sector too. And, as costs head northwards, so will the propensity to affect savings through reduced and optimum use of power'necessity rather than an option.

So also, safety of equipment, and personnel, is beginning to make business sense for Indian industries as an equipment-malfunction due to faults in electric circuit or unhealthy power can severely affect their businesses, especially in extremely critical set-ups like data and disaster-recovery centers. Plus, most of the global operations, of which India is increasingly a part, are time and performance critical and affords no downtimes. This means that the reliability of power is crucial and an indispensable component.

And, as the Indian corporate go global, some of the best practices already entrenched in the industrially advanced nations are cloned and employed locally, either by decree of the parent company, or by the diktat of international clients. And, these best-quality practices invariably involve benchmarks on the quality of power too. And, this spreads to locally too.

There are signs too that given the woeful state of energy supply in the country, the government is at last waking up to the imperative of not only producing more-and-more of it but also saving when it can. Just this month, the Union Government ordered all state-owned enterprises under the Department of Heavy Industry to subject themselves to a power audit to cut costs and earn carbon credits. So far, only the state-owned entities in power, cement and paper were subjected to a mandatory audit of power.

However, the power audit industry leaders assert that the government needs to do more. They call for regulatory mechanisms, and even legislation, to be put in place mandating an energy audit of at least the large industries and business facilities - both in the public and private sector.

They also cite the lack of awareness of the direct and indirect benefits of power audits in the government and industry at large. They also acknowledge the need for advocacy and education campaigns to take their message to a larger audience and create a context where the energy audits are integrated into the businesses as an intelligent practice.

Another internal issue that the energy audit companies face in India is the shortage of trained human resources and even greater shortage of training institutions. This can only be remedied through bringing qualified professionals from the advanced markets to India, creating training modules and thus create a pool of trained manpower. As the industry grows and matures, and the need for qualified professional grows exponentially, the best in the already trained manpower can be selected to further train a fresh set of trainees to expand the qualified manpower pool.

While power audits in India have a long way to go, the path the market has to tread is being cleared and smoothened by the day.

Power Audit Process

A typical power audit process goes through the following steps:

• Site survey: This could be based on the study of preliminary reports like architectural blueprint, air-conditioning blueprints, electrical lighting and power blueprints, utility bills and operation logs for the year preceding the audit. Auditors can walk through the data center and analyze or cross check the power elements based on the study.
• Thermograph test: With thermal imaging, power lines maintenance technicians locate overheating joints and parts, a tell-tale sign of their failure, to eliminate potential hazards. Where thermal insulation becomes faulty, building construction technicians can see thermal signatures that indicate heat leaks and to improve the efficiencies of cooling or heating air-conditioning.
• Power quality monitoring: Power consumption and power quality data are monitored and recorded simultaneously.
• Analyzing measurement results: The observations are then meticulously studied based on scientific methods using principles and formulae.
• Solving power quality problems: Based on the kind of problem, the business may need to deploy surge suppressors (transients), voltage regulators (voltage sags/swells), power conditioners (voltage fluctuations), Uninterruptible Power Supplies (spikes/switching transients) and generators (blackout).