The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) organized a workshop on ‘Energy Efficiency in India’s Cold Chain: the Role of Pack Houses’ on November 14 at New Delhi. It was supported by World Bank Group and the Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE.)

The meeting was co-chaired by Abhay Bakre of BEE and Defne Gencer of World Bank Group. The speakers included Dr. Pawanexh Kohli – Chief Consultant and CEO of National Centre for Cold-Chain Development (NCCD), Amit Love of Ozone Cell and Dr. Satish Kumar of AEEE. Various government departments including the Ministries of
Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, and farmer cooperatives were represented. From the HVAC&R industry, there was representation from Danfoss and Blue Star.
ISHRAE was represented by Ashwini Mehra, Executive Secretary.

The objective of the workshop was to create awareness about the need to consolidate farm produce in central pack houses in India, which has a preponderance of fragmented farms. This would enable higher retail price realization for fruits and vegetables, reduce food losses, and bring us closer to the goal of doubling farmers’ incomes. Plans are underway to increase the number of pack houses from about 500 currently to 55,000 in five years. This will increase power requirement and BEE plans to support, with the assistance of World Bank, all those technologies that are energy efficient, with the target to effect 30% savings in energy consumption. A performance metric of kWh/sqm or kWh/ MT of produce would be established for pack houses, with baseline guidelines.

Abhay Bakre mentioned that BEE is moving towards specifying energy efficiency for a total system (such as a building) instead of appliances or equipment used in the system. A study, commissioned by BEE and carried out by AEEE, was presented to the gathering. The farmer cooperatives raised the issues of long power cuts and skill shortage in remotely located pack houses. Ashwini Mehra suggested that the terms of reference of such exercises should include studying the possibility and viability of using renewable resources like solar and bio-mass, which are readily available in villages.