Cities are about smart management, not just administration Do smart homes make for smart cities? Do smart cities mean we must have smart citizens and administrators?. What indeed are smart homes or cities? Here is the full version of an interview The Hindu BusinessLine had with Chandrashekar Hariharan, Chairman, BCIL, and Member Trustee of FactorFour Foundation, Responcities Foundation. Q1. How is the smart home movement building up in the country? More than smart homes it is the energy efficient homes that is beginning to gather momentum across the major agglomerations and cities in the country. The green certified buildings process has now caught on to a point where we have today over 2 billion square feet of such certified homes. Smart homes sometimes is construed to cover energy systems that people put up in their homes as part of products that they buy and not as a wholesome approach to the entire building. The decade ahead will clearly show a big shift in the way homes become smart in the use of energy, water, and waste with the solutions and the greater awareness that buyers and occupants of homes will gain, thanks to media as well as the certification process from agencies like the Indian Green Building Council. Q2. What are some of the key trends in building smart homes? There will be smart appliances which are certified at the 5-Star level. These can be fans, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dish washers and many other systems which go with the certification from the Bureau of Energy Efficiency or any such rated agency which evaluates the energy efficiency ratio of such appliances. That is in itself a large area of smart home applications into the future. Smart homes are also to do with how we get water to be used responsibly, effectively and with no compromise of comfort for the occupant of the building. Faucets and showers that are smart in the outflow of water per minute or treatment systems that help you reuse the waste water for gardens, for car wash, for swabbing of homes and for other purposes also will be part of such smart directions for water. Similarly in waste, we already have some very low tech, low cost user-friendly smart systems for treating wet waste. More such systems are surely in the offing. Q3. What is the difference between a conventional home and a smart home today? I understand the gap has come down significantly. Back in 2004, a simple waterless urinal could be purchased only at a cost of about 26,000. Today the same systems are available as little as 5000. Dual flush tanks didn’t exist up until about 2005, and when they did they were at 6 liters and 3 liters to the dual modes. Today such dual flush tanks are available at as little as 1.5 liter and 3 liter. The dynamics of such water flow and movement have been cracked by the industry with deep research across the world and in India. Similarly, examples of pumps that have become more energy efficient while disrupting cost, lighting electricity as well as low and high impedance electricity products have also managed to bring a balance to make things smart in their use.
The differential today has come down from a high of 8 - 10 percent in those years to as little as about 1 or 2 percent. Additionally today the payback for most such applications with capital cost are clearly showing that the capital cost can be amortized in less than 3 - 4 years for most of these products and appliances and for energy systems and installations. Q4. Most of the large buildings are taking to green home technologies, but is it also happening in small homes? You are right. The larger builders will of course take to this easier because they have more access to information and guidance on relevant things that they need to be installing as part of their building construction process for bringing such energy efficiency or water efficiency. Smaller homes do not have that advantage of information. If they only knew how to either look it up on the web or to talk to experts by simply walking in to their places of work and securing the inputs that you need, then it can make perhaps a difference to the quantum of small homes that go green. Q5. Let us also talk of affordable homes becoming green homes, is that possible? The answer is a resounding yes. Clearly to bring in the very basics of energy efficiency in terms of energy, water and waste is already proven to have been done in the past in a few cities. And the road further is clearly to see that affordable homes are decidedly energy efficient with some simple engineering installations that do not cost any additional money. Getting affordable homes to take to simple low cost solutions for mitigation challenges of treatment of waste water and its reuse, use of certified lighting systems that can save electricity of as much as 30 percent, as well as the use of water systems in water and of waste management can make affordable homes distinctly green. Q6. What about smart cities? It appears to be a big dream given the funding requirements. Is there lack of clarity in the way we define a smart city? Smart cities to my mind is not a dream, it is very much within the realms of doability at the levels of the solutions that the cities will bring through industry, while it is also as feasible in terms of funds. In this first round of three years, 20 cities are being chosen for year one and even as we talk cities are on high gear working out the final draft of the proposals. In year two and three there would be 40 cities each. The next round of another 400 cities will similarly gain from such smart city initiatives. Much of the funding for these will come from the private sector with structured capital expenditure that offers payback to the investing company, while the city administration offered them the right of access for such infrastructure as well as collection of tariffs until they are able to recover their investments.
The average total investment in the smart city initiatives is about 10,000 crores, with nearly 60 80 percent of this money coming from private sector investments. The key shift that will happen is one of governance and the other significant change will be in the tariff regime for energy, water, and waste management. Worldwide there are cities which pay up to 20 cents of a dollar to every unit of electricity. There are cities in India which pay less than one cent of a dollar! Similarly in water. The old polemic has been that infrastructure must be free or at costs that are not hurting citizens. In many cities of the world rents are lower than the costs of water and power and waste management. In Amsterdam the failure to deliver segregated waste at home can mean penalty of as much as €10! Similarly the bill for energy and water in many suburbs of London City can be as much as £1200 to a middle class household earning about £4000. This regime will also mean that governance will move from the administration that city corporations and municipalities have brought so far to management and governance by infrastructure providers who will make the difference. Cities like Barcelona, Curitiba, Adelaide have shown how going smart on city infrastructure can bring a world of difference to the quality of living in a city. What we are seeing now as the beginning of or movement on smart cities in India is an excellent direction and an initiative that is about the only solution for the lack of resources for producing electricity or supplying water into the far future. If we have to continue to be as inefficient as we have been so far in the use of these two resources, we will then have continued and debilitating deficits in the supply of these two vital resources. It is easy for citizens to complain when we don’t have power or water supply. It is easier if we cooperate as citizens and pay the right price and enable such infrastructure in our cities. This is not a case clearly for abandoning welfare measures which would protect the 30 percent average poor dwellers in every one of our cities. This is only an argument to ensure that the pathetic levels of energy and water tariffs as well as the complete lack of responsibility from citizens in most cities to manage waste in their own homes properly it has made this case for smart cities a very strong one.