Only 14pc families buy high star ACs, cost remains key barrier: CEEW

About 14 per cent of Indian families surveyed purchased four or five star rated air conditioners (ACs) as cost remained the key barrier to buy power efficient ACs, according to studies by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

About 14 percent of Indian families surveyed purchased four or five star rated air conditioners (ACs) as cost remained the key barrier to buy power efficient ACs, according to studies by the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW). The studies found that 93 percent of households in tier-II cities, that are aware of the star labeling program, find it useful, the CEEW said in a statement.

However, only 14 percent purchased a four or five star AC (air conditioner). Over 75 percent of households attributed the cost of the AC as a barrier to purchasing a high star AC, it added. The studies based on a survey and a randomized control trial (RCT) experiment, recommended lowering of GST (good and services tax) on highly efficient products from 28 percent to under 5 percent to successfully allow for competition with low-efficiency products.

The studies are based on a door-to-door survey conducted across 400 plus households in four Indian cities of Dhanbad, Madurai, Meerut, and Vadodara. A significant markdown in the GST would allow for more favorable competition towards higher efficiency products, and also encourage industry to create financing schemes and encourage further product development for this segment of ACs specifically, it opined. Shikha Bhasin, Programme Lead at CEEW, and lead author of the studies said, “India has led one of the most successful energy-labeling programs globally. These studies are an attempt to gauge its impact in non-tier I cities, and address gaps to better the energy efficiency trajectory of our cooling sector." Bhasin further said that significant opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is available if households adopt better AC use practices. The survey, however, found that only a third of households believed there to be any relationship between servicing and the maintenance of energy efficiency, and 71 percent of households would not prefer spending more than 1–1.5 hours on servicing. Moreover, it found that 24 percent of households would prefer paying less than Rs 300 per servicing.

Around 60 percent of the respondents reported a substantial or large contribution of ACs in their monthly electricity bill. However, only 26 percent of households identified any specific AC servicing practices as having a direct impact on the electricity load, electricity consumption, or efficiency of an AC unit. Given the constant rise in temperatures, India will pose the fastest growth in cooling demand in the world (8-fold overall and 11-fold for residential cooling) over the next two decades. The adoption of energy-efficient behaviors among AC users, thus, becomes necessary. To promote energy-efficient behaviors, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) had launched a consumer awareness campaign to encourage the use of ACs at 24°C or higher among residential consumers. The CEEW studies found that though 46 percent of the respondents indicated that temperature setting had an impact on an AC’s energy consumption, 73 percent of consumers still used their AC at a temperature of 23°C or lower. The two CEEW studies are ‘Do Residential AC Buyers Prioritise Energy Efficiency? Indian Consumer Perceptions and Purchases’ and ‘Consumer Behaviour and Climate Action: Insights from a Randomised Control Trial Experiment in India’s Residential Cooling Sector’.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)