Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-16 (section)

=== Box 16.2 | Standards and Labelling for Energy Efficient Refrigerators and Air Conditioners in India ===

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Energy efficiency is often characterised as a ‘low-hanging fruit’ for reducing energy use. However, systemic failures such as lack of access to capital, hidden costs of implementation, and imperfect information can result in low investments into adoption and innovation in energy efficiency measures ( [[#Sorrell--2004|Sorrell et al. 2004]] ). To address such barriers, India’s governmental Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) introduced the Standards and Labelling (S&amp;L) programme to promote innovation in energy efficient appliances in 2006 ( [[#Sundaramoorthy--2017|Sundaramoorthy and Walia 2017]] ). While context-dependent, the programme’s design, policies and scale-up contain lessons for addressing systemic failures elsewhere too.

'''Programme design and addressing of early sy''' '''stemic barriers'''

To design the S&amp;L programme, BEE drew on the international experiences and technical expertise of the Collaborative Labelling and Appliance Standards Program (CLASP) – a non-profit organisation that provides technical and policy support to governments in implementing S&amp;L programmes. For example, since there was no data on the efficiency of appliances in the Indian market, CLASP assisted with early data collection efforts, resulting in a focus on refrigerators and air conditioners ( [[#McNeil--2008|McNeil et al. 2008]] ).

Besides drawing from international knowledge, the involvement of manufacturers, testing laboratories, and customers was crucial for the functioning of the innovation system.

To involve manufacturers, BEE employed three strategies to set the standards at an ambitious yet acceptable level. First, BEE enlisted the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi (a public technical university) to engage with manufacturers and to demonstrate cost-effective designs of energy-efficient appliances. Second, BEE agreed to make the standards voluntary from 2006 to 2010. In return, the manufacturers agreed to mandatory and progressively more stringent standards starting in 2010. Third, BEE established a multistakeholder committee with representation from BEE, the Bureau of Indian Standards, appliance manufacturers, test laboratories, independent experts, and consumer groups ( [[#Jairaj--2016|Jairaj et al. 2016]] ) to ensure that adequately stringent standards are negotiated every two years.

At this time, India had virtually no capacity for independent testing of appliances. Here, too, BEE used multiple approaches towards creating the actors and resources needed for the innovation system to function. First, BEE funded the Central Power Research Institute (CPRI) – a national laboratory for applied research, testing and certification of electrical equipment – to set up refrigerator and AC testing facilities. Second, they invited bids from private laboratories, thus creating a demand for testing facilities. Third, BEE developed testing protocols in partnership with universities. Australian standards for testing frost-free refrigerators were adopted until local standards were developed. Thus, once the testing laboratories, protocols and benchmark prices for testing were in place, the appliance manufacturers could employ their services.

Finally, a customer outreach programme was conducted from 2006 to 2008 to inform customers about energy-efficient appliances, to enable them to interpret the labels correctly, and to understand their purchase decisions and information sources ( [[#Jain--2018|Jain et al. 2018]] ; [[#Joshi--2019|Joshi et al. 2019]] ). BEE initiated a capacity-building programme for retailers to be an information source for customers. A comprehensive document with details of different models and labels was provided to retailers, together with a condensed booklet to be shared with customers.

'''Adapting policies to technologies an''' '''d local context'''

While many of India’s standards and testing protocols were based on international standards, they needed to be adapted to the Indian context. For example, because of higher temperatures in India, the reference outside temperature of 32°C for refrigerators was changed to 36°C.

AC testing protocols also had to be adapted because of the emergence of inverter-based ACs. Existing testing done only at a single temperature did not value inverter-based ACs’ better average performance as compared to fixed-speed ACs over a range of temperatures. Thus, the Indian Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (ISEER) was developed for Indian temperature conditions in 2015 by studying International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards and through consultations with manufacturers ( [[#Mukherjee--2020|Mukherjee et al. 2020]] ).

These measures had multiple effects on technological change. As a result of stringent standards, India has some of the most efficient refrigerators globally. In the case of ACs, the ISEER accelerated technological change by favouring inverter-based ACs over fixed-speed ACs, driving down their costs and increasing their market shares ( [[#BEE--2020|BEE 2020]] ).

'''Scaling up policies for market''' '''transformation'''

As the S&amp;L programme was expanded, BEE took measures to standardise, codify and automate it. For example, to process a high volume of applications for labels efficiently, an online application portal with objective and transparent certification criteria was created. This gave certainty to the manufacturers, enabling diversity and faster diffusion of energy-efficient appliances. Thus by 2019, the programme expanded to cover thousands of products across 23 appliance types ( [[#BEE--2020|BEE 2020]] ).

Besides issuing labels, the enforcement of standards also needed to be scaled up efficiently. BEE developed protocols for randomly sampling appliances for testing. Manufacturers were given a fixed period to rectify products that did not meet the standards, failing which they would be penalised and the test results would be made public.

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