The Journal interviewed Ravichandran Purushothaman, President, Danfoss India on the sidelines of the Energy Efficiency Drive inaugural.

Excerpts from the interview:
Journal (J): This is the fourth edition of the Hall of Fame. What trends have you observed over this time?
Ravichandran Purushothaman (RP): The benchmarks are moving up every year. There is a trend towards an integrated approach to design. A lot of digitalisation is happening. And the level of awareness of adoption of technologies is increasing. Every winning building is an iconic building. However, we are still not close to the best in the world. Our buildings are yet to reach the global scale. Airports are still larger consumers of power than buildings.

J: What is new this year?
RP: This year we have decided to focus on healthcare and hospitality related buildings. The reason is that the Jury felt the need to create benchmarks in these areas. And there is considerable scope for energy efficiency innovation in these industries; waste heat is a gold mine.

J: What are the major challenges you face?
RP: Lack of awareness is a challenge; that is why we are organising these road shows. Getting one year data from BMS is another challenge, even for good entries.

J: What is your message to our readers?
RP: My key message is that design is not just about matching heat load with cooling capacity, but about optimising the heat load itself.