New Delhi, Aug 29 (KNN) The Carbon Trust UK, the leading UK agency to promote energy efficiency and reduce carbon footprints, will collaborate with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), the focal Government of India agency to promote energy efficiency to launch a Rs 5000 crore  fund for promoting industrial energy efficiency.

The concept of the fund proposed as Industrial Energy Efficiency Fund (IEEF), was brainstormed with the industry representatives recently at Delhi.

The fund proposed with a corpus of Rs 5000 crore will focus on primarily micro small and medium industries, though large, energy consuming industries will also be assisted under the fund.

The key components of the IEEF are tailored to address the major barriers to energy efficiency action in industry and include coordination, promotion, advice and finance.

The fund will aim to support a range of energy efficiency technologies starting from technology development to deployment.

The detail operating plan of the IEEF was presented at the meeting by the experts from the carbon Trust, U K, who also invited comments from the stakeholders on operationalising the fund.

While welcoming formation of the fund, representatives from the MSME sector at the meeting, requested for a simple process for availing assistance from the fund and widespread involvement of Energy Service Companies (ESCO)s in implementing energy conservation projects in MSMEs.

Stress on upscaling and upgrading the manufacturing processes in the MSMEs was also suggested by the representatives from the sector, to enhance energy efficiency.

For this purpose a component on skill development was also suggested under the Fund.

The house agreed that cluster mode will be the most economic approach to implement energy efficiency projects in MSMEs.

Representatives from BEE, the agency proposed to be operating the fund, mentioned about risks in the implementation of the fund. (KNN/ DB)