New guidelines to help build more energy-efficient, comfortable houses in Nagpur
Nagpur city, keen on the adoption of large-scale energy efficiency measures in its buildings, joined the Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA) Initiative in 2018. The city has prepared Technical Guidelines to help make its housing more energy efficient. Nagpur’s ‘Guidelines for Energy Efficient Homes’ includes principles and measures for energy efficiency and thermal comfort that can be adopted locally during the design and construction stages of new housing. This city-specific guideline document will serve as a ready reference for city officials, as well as for architects, developers and homeowners in Nagpur to build efficient housing with reduced environmental and climate impact and without compromising comfort levels.
As an initial step in this activity, the plans and designs of two affordable housing buildings proposed to be built under the ‘Home Sweet Home’ scheme, comprising about 900 houses as part of Nagpur’s Smart City project, were reviewed. The design review identified suitable design measures and solutions that can be adopted to enhance the energy performance of the buildings as well as thermal comfort levels of future occupants. Adopting these recommendations from the pilot-scale design review into this yet-to-be constructed affordable housing project will help achieve more liveable, comfortable, and efficient homes. The findings from this pilot-scale design review were used in the guideline formulation.
For the design review and guidelines preparation supported by the BEA initiative, Nagpur Municipal Corporation and Nagpur Smart and Sustainable City Development Corporation Limited (NSSCDCL) worked closely with the ICLEI South Asia team and building design experts from Environmental Design Solutions (EDS). Consultations with NSSCDCL and NMC officials and local stakeholders helped to better understand the local housing situation, existing design, and construction practices, and to identify priority elements and measures to be included in the guidelines.
To promote climate-responsive design in Nagpur’s homes, the guidelines address principles and measures related to building form and orientation, natural ventilation, shading, sustainable building materials, cool/green roofs, energy-efficient lighting, and systems, and adoption of renewable energy solutions. The guideline can be handily used by the NMC and NSSCDCL officials to incorporate the suggested measures in their future affordable housing projects as well as in the local building regulations.
Nagpur is one of 50+ partner cities of the BEA initiative. As the regional lead of the BEA project, ICLEI South Asia is supporting the city in planning and implementing the building energy efficiency actions. In addition to activities addressing energy-efficient design and construction of housing, Nagpur has also undertaken benchmarking of energy consumption in 10 public and 10 commercial buildings (hotels) under the BEA project. Energy audits have been conducted in public, commercial as well as residential buildings to identify suitable energy conservation measures and demonstrate the potential for energy savings and energy performance improvement in Nagpur’s different building typologies.
