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Technology

ICT to cut emissions in India?

By Alice Kok | 18 November 2008

A new report says that a more pervasive use of ICT can help reduce emissions and fight climate change in India. While the country may be known the world over for its expertise in ICT, the use of it is fairly limited.

Published by non-profit organisation The Climate Group and Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), the report says: “Transformation in the way people and business use technology could reduce annual manmade global emissions by 15 per cent by 2020 and deliver energy efficient savings to global businesses of over US$800 billion.”

Four major opportunities for ICT to make further transformation cuts in global emissions has been identified. These include smart building design and use, smart logistics, smart electricity grids and smart industrial motor systems. These will be in addition to activities such as tele-working, video-conferencing, e-paper and e-commerce.

Smart grid technologies were the largest opportunity explored in the study, and could globally reduce over two giga tons of CO2 emissions worth nearly US$125 billion. India is seen as capable of making a meaningful contribution.

Currently, in India, over 30 per cent of the generated power is lost through aggregated technical commercial losses, the report pointed out adding reduction of these losses in India’s power sector by 30 per cent is possible through better monitoring and management of electricity grids, first with smart meters and then through integrating more advanced ICTs into the so- called ‘energy internet’.

Among other areas of opportunities, the global study predicts PC ownership will quadruple between 2007 and 2020 to four billion devices.

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