siliconindia | | October 20208IN MY OPINIONINDIAN HVAC INDUSTRY ­ HOW WELL IT IS PROGRESSING? By ChiragBaijal, Managing Director- HVAC, Carrier CorporationChirag is the country general manager for Carrier & Toshiba Brands HVAC business for regions in India, who have strong strategic thinking skills.T he Indian HVAC Industry is one of the largest markets in Asia, and saw around $3.0 Billion of air-conditioning equipment sales in 2018. This was primarily dominated by the residential air-conditioner seg-ment, which contributed to around 80 percent of the overall aircondi-tioning equipment business in India. The growth trends for HVAC sales in the country has also been strong in the past decade, and is estimated to be around 9 percent per annum for the next 5 years. This growth is ow-ing to the significant potential around air-conditioning penetration which currently stands at a mere 7 percent for the entire country and improved standards of living.In addition, with focus shifting around technology and energy effi-ciency, the HVAC industry is also undergoing a massive and steady transformation. Air-conditioners are energy intensiveequipment, and con-tribute to around 40-50 percent to an average building electricity load. With such a significant contribution of electricity consumption happen-ing from air-conditioning, the gov-ernment has been taking measures to promote reduced consumption and sustainability.The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Power, has been enforcing regulations on electricity consumption by air-conditioners, by doing upward revisions in the Ener-gy Labelling Program periodically, in favor ofenergy efficient systems. We have seen a massive turnaround in the sales of inverter-based air-condition-ers in the residential market, wherein their sales may have equaled conven-tional fixed speed ACs in 2018. In addition, while this program was ear-lier restricted to room air-condition-ers only, it is now getting extended to Chillers, VRF and other packaged products as well.The current focus isn't limited to increasing the efficiency ceiling for manufacturers. The government is also promoting sales of these high ef-ficiency equipment by launching sales schemes for these ACs at subsidized rates. This shall not only support the quicker adoption and affordability of high efficiency ACs, but also lead to significant energy conservation, once widespread. Also, the government is consis-tently increasing focus on phasing out ODP refrigerants (phase out of all HCFC based refrigerants by 2030),
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