HomeInsideSolar Decathlon India Kicks-off Third Edition of the Challenge with Project Partners, Lodha Group, Mahindra Lifespaces, Infosys, UN-Habitat

Solar Decathlon India Kicks-off Third Edition of the Challenge with Project Partners, Lodha Group, Mahindra Lifespaces, Infosys, UN-Habitat

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In its third edition, Solar Decathlon India (SDI), net-zero building challenge, has empanelled four leading organisations – Lodha Group, Mahindra Lifespaces, Infosys, and UN-Habitat as Project Partners. SDI is a challenge for postgraduate and undergraduate students to design and develop net-zero, climate resilient and market-ready building solutions for real building projects. The four Project Partners have offered their real-world construction projects for the student teams to work on. By working with these developers, students can get first-hand experience of the complexities of the buildings sector, and develop solutions that are implementable and scalable. Thirty-two student teams participating in the 2022-23 challenge are collaborating with these project partners and developing net-zero, resilient, affordable, market-ready solutions for their projects.

Sunita Purushottam, Head of Sustainability at Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd. says, “Mahindra Lifespaces has been an active partner of SDI since its inception. We are happy to offer our projects and guidance to young professionals who participate in SDI to develop net zero projects. SDI interns have added tremendous value to our net-zero journey.”

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SDI’s Project Partners have offered their project information to participating teams, including site plans, pictures of sites, hydrology, budgets, and other technical details, and their design expectations such as energy reduction. The partners have scheduled individual calls with teams to answer questions regarding the projects, and will work with the students throughout the challenge. Multiple teams working on each of their projects will enable the Project Partners to evaluate a variety of competing alternatives.

Sonal Bhide, Head of Architecture, Townships, Lodha Group says, “At Lodha, we have a sense of urgency and are very passionate about addressing climate risks. We feel we can foster success through collaborations like SDI where the generation of future designers are encouraged to join us in Building a Better Life and leaving a better planet for the generations to come.”

India is a rapidly urbanising country with 51 percent of its population projected to live in urban areas by 2047. This will necessitate a massive expansion of urban centres and buildings which will, in turn, affect energy consumption because of cooling demands, electricity, etc, to support this population. For India to become a net-zero emissions country by 2070 as committed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the buildings sector must reimagine ways to build energy-efficient constructions that can help mitigate warming and climate crises. Empowering students with knowledge and skills for designing and operating net-zero buildings during their early education will influence the buildings they will work on over their careers, spanning at least three decades.

Prabin Bajracharya, Senior Programme Officer, UN-Habitat Nepal says, “It is really inspiring to be involved with the youth and guide them towards conservation of heritage in Kathmandu Valley. We would like to thank Solar Decathlon India for bridging the gap between the community and youth innovators to work together for this conservation work, which is really applaudable.”

This year, SDI has students from 116 architecture and engineering colleges across India that are participating, working on providing super efficient, net-zero energy and net-zero water for real projects located in 55 cities. Over 1600 students will develop the ability to design buildings that contribute to India’s Panchamrit goals, and their exposure to real projects and partners will help them hit the ground running to enter the profession several steps ahead of their peers.

Prasad Vaidya, Director, Solar Decathlon India, says, “Our empanelled project partners are the leaders in providing students with the opportunities to work on their projects to propose innovative solutions. Over the 3 years of SDI, students have also brought 150+ projects from other developers and owners into the challenge. By participating in SDI, project partners and educational institutions are able to build industry-academia relationships that will be mutually beneficial and possibly long-term. SDI provides a platform for these collaborations to engage on climate change solutions.”

Registrations for the challenge began in July 2022, and the teams will work to compete in the Design Challenge Finals event held in May 2023. Stay tuned for more information at solardecathlonindia.in/2022-23-challenge.

About Solar Decathlon India

Solar Decathlon India is a Net-Zero Building Challenge for students from Indian institutions to learn and design net-zero-energy-water, affordable, and resilient building solutions for real, live projects to combat Climate Change through the buildings sector. Student teams develop affordable and industry-ready solutions for real projects with the help of online Self-Learning Modules and expert mentorship provided during the year-long challenge. It is a hands-on, practical, innovation-based challenge that moves the construction and real estate industry towards implementing net-zero solutions.

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COP28 UAE: SANY Promotes Green Manufacturing Transformation, Takes Concrete Action to Tackle Climate Challenges

CHANGSHA, China, Nov. 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SANY Group, ("SANY"), a globally leading enterprise of the high-end equipment manufacturing industry, is accentuating advancing sustainable development and the green manufacturing transformation of the heavy machinery industry, ahead of the COP28 UAE, that is set to take place from November 30 to December 12 in Dubai. The theme of the 13-day program this year is "Actionism," calling for people to rise to meet the climate change challenges.

The COP28 will center on four major paradigm shifts – namely accelerating the transition from fossil fuels, agreeing on climate finance shifts, emphasizing the role of people and nature in climate action, and ensuring the summit is an inclusive event that women, indigenous people, local communities, youth, countries and more can all be a part of.

SANY is responding actively and positively to the summit's agenda with concrete actions to promote the transformation of green manufacturing, bringing sustainable solutions to the industries of mining, construction, wind power, and more.

Taking green actions to build a sustainable future

SANY is vigorously expanding the use of green energy (renewables such as solar and wind) in production processes to reduce the reliance on traditional energy sources, lower carbon emissions, and support climate change actions. It has adopted multiple initiatives, especially in accelerating the R&D and application of wind energy, hydrogen, and electrification solutions, and achieved significant results.

SANY's subsidiary SANY Renewable Energy has been investing in and constructing wind farms to boost the proportion of wind power in the energy structure, through intelligent upgrades in manufacturing and creating intelligent workshops. By doing this, SANY Renewable Energy has reduced the overall unit energy consumption and carbon emissions by 15 percent compared to pre-upgrade.

In 2022, SANY has added more than 3,000 energy metering connections. SANY built China's first intelligent mixing station park and invested 3.22 million yuan in photovoltaic construction that will produce 900,000 kWh of power annually. The park will cut 887 tons of carbon emission, 242 tons of dust emissions, 26.7 tons of sulfide, and 13.4 tons of nitric oxide to achieve synergetic development of intelligent manufacturing and environmental conservation.

A total of 11 subsidiaries of SANY have installed photovoltaic power generation equipment, with clean energy usage amounting to 16.013 million kWh.

SANY is actively engaged in the R&D of hydrogen fuel cell technology to improve battery efficiency, reduce cost, and boost the production and storage capabilities, while expanding the applications of hydrogen energy.

Innovation-driven climate action tackles industry bottlenecks

Through establishing a green supply chain, SANY adopts renewable materials and environmentally friendly technologies to reduce resource waste and improve the sustainability of the supply chain.

SANY continues to improve the long-term mechanism for pollution prevention and control, strengthen the control of waste emissions including water, gas, and other hazardous substances, and be cautious of business and operation actions that could damage the ecological environment. In 2022, the group's wastewater and gas emissions met the standard rate of 100 percent, with a 100 percent compliance rate for hazardous waste disposal.

The group is also pushing for using environment-friendly materials to minimize pollution, so that the carbon reduction throughout the product life cycle also includes materials. In 2022, its VOCs emission density was 0.0011 tons per million revenue, a 39.71 percent reduction from the base year.

Meanwhile, the continuous upgrade of production techniques and processes, promotion of energy conservation technologies, and advancement of low-carbon technology development are not only playing key roles in improving production efficiency, but also reducing carbon footprint and aims to reach the "dual-carbon" goals.

Calling for the public's participation

SANY has been carrying out training programs and campaigns centered on environmental protection for employees, while further raising community engagement in terms of green, low-carbon, community-friendly, and educational innovation agendas. In 2022, the company employees completed 687.4 hours of volunteer work, and SANY invested 9.75 million yuan in the year to support 15 public welfare projects.

SANY Construction Industry is leading the green technology application in urban infrastructure construction to accelerate the sustainable development of cities and building intelligent cities, green transportation systems, and energy-conserving architectures to reduce energy consumption, improving urban environment quality and people's livelihoods.

In terms of biodiversity and sustainable development, SANY emphasizes the conservation of soil, ocean, crops, and animals to create a better future, and advocates a circular economy to decrease the waste of resources.

In the context of increasingly severe issues of global climate change, SANY, as a leader in the green industry, is committed to promoting sustainable development and actively joining global efforts to address climate change through comprehensive initiatives such as green supply chains, green energy, and carbon emission reduction.

For more information about SANY Group, please visit www.sanyglobal.com or follow us on Facebook or YouTube.

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