After the enactment of Energy Conservation Act 2001 & Electricity Act 2003, BEE & CEA, MoP commissioned these authorities to issue two...
After the enactment of Energy Conservation Act 2001 & Electricity Act 2003, BEE & CEA, MoP commissioned these authorities to issue two guidelines in August & December 2008 for S&L programme for defining losses and to follow the specification/technical parameters enumerated there in respectively by the distribution transformer manufacturers. Consequently BEE issued notification in January 2009 prescribing losses of DT for star 1 to star 5 ranging from maximum to minimum losses. While CEA issued notification August 2010 on Technical Standards for construction of electrical plants and electrical lines, regulation 2010, wherein it was provided that minimum star 3 is only required to be manufactured, procured and installed in the system. But this regulation has again been amended in April 2015 where it has been notified that “the maximum losses of oil filled DTs shall be as per relevant Indian Standard”.
Since then, distribution transformer manufacturers had been diligently following norms of these authorities in conjunction with requirements of discoms/ utilities. \
In the meanwhile, IS:1180 (1989) was revised by BIS in 2014 which incorporated losses of DT and lebeled them as level 1 to level 3 in line with BEE’s star 3 to star 5. Moreover Ministry of Heavy Industries (DHI) issued Quality Control Order 2014 for DTs initially upto 200 KV at 11 KV as per old IS:1180 (1989) and finally amended in 2015 up to 2500 KV at 33/22/11 KV level as per revised IS:1180 Part 1/2014.
Besides, all these authorities particularly BEE &BIS had been issuing their guidelines and norms for star labeling & registration/ certifications of the manufactures for manufacture and supply of DTs to the discoms/utilities culminating for the manufacturers for dual certification which is being agitated with BEE/CEA/BIS and has created lot of unrest amongst the DT manufactures as BEE/BIS both do not want to leave the hold as they are milching the cash cow akin to polyandry i.e. one wife has to succumb to the pressure of two husbands. In all fairness the interest of transformer industry and Govt is well served if BIS who is responsible for formulating the Indian Standard is only given the sole authority for certification instead of BEE & BIS which is not being agreed to by MoP and needs to be reviewed by for affording relief to distribution transformer manufactures.
Now the BEE’s notification dated January 2009 has since been amended vide notification dated 16th December 2016 which is finally effective from 1st July 2017 for uprating the losses for star rating of DTs of old star 4 or level 2 of BIS to star 1 and old star 5 or level 3 of BIS to star 2, and so as on up to star 5.
There was initial reaction of opposing this uprating but having felt that this aspect is in the larger interest of the country for energy conservation and reduction of carbon footprint , has been reluctantly agreed and accordingly distribution transformer manufactures have upgraded their manufacturing technique in order to meet the requirement of BEE/MoP’s notification dated 16th December 2016 . Now the difficulty will arise if the new star 2 (old 5) is adopted without having gone into the nitty gritty of availability of adequate quantity of superior grade core material l in the market. The onus rests on BEE to frame timeline in consultation with all stakeholders, so that no problem is apprehended by the manufactures in the country and they would equip themselves lest any impediment comes up for switching over to new star level. It would be necessary that at least 2 years period is given as
most of the distribution transformer manufacturers falls in MSME category.
Another main difficulty with BEE is that distribution transformer manufacturers have to struggle to obtain star label under S&L programme. Numerous communications and meetings with officials have no effect. Even once in one of the meetings on 12th May 2017. BEE under took to evolve mechanism to ease the procedure for star label registration with BEE but so far all in vein. Moreover BEE has been approached for modification of the notification to the effect that all orders placed on distribution transformer manufacturers prior to 30th June 2017 by discoms/utilities including EPC contractors, Private contractors for electrification works of colonies, malls, hospitals etc should be allowed supply DTs as per old BEE’s notification of 2009.
In order to allow the industry to do the business with ease the authorities should take immediate necessary action as under:
- i) BEE to issue immediate clarifications to its instructions to transformer manufacturers dated 28th August 2017 to allow
supply of DTs ordered by EPC contractors or private parties before 30th June 2017. - ii) To prepare a calendar for applicability/ switching over to the next higher Energy Efficient star rating e. star 2 and above in advance, in consultation with the stakeholders, so that all the stakeholders make the preparation for adoption.
iii) To prepare the user friendly format for the application for the stakeholders to get the star labels from BEE on fast track basis without any Hiccups.
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