Grundfos IndiaINTERVIEWS

Mr. Shankar Rajaram, Area Sales Director – Industry, INDO Region, Grundfos India

How well poised is India’s Heating & Cooling Equipment (Boilers, Furnaces & Heat Exchangers, Cooling Towers, Chillers) industry?

The world is moving towards a sustainable future and given this, a completely sustainable end-to-end heating and cooling equipment are expected to become the new reality. The emphasis is on energy efficiency standards of cooling equipment to reduce impact on the environment. In a tropical country such as India, solar energy driven heating and cooling solutions have ample untapped potential.  It can possibly reduce energy consumption while improving adaptability, scalability and minimizing the footprint.

Going forward the COVID-19 pandemic will bring the role of technology to the forefront, in terms of innovation in the heating and cooling space. As we slowly settle into the new normal world, heating and cooling products and requirements for various industries will largely focus on the ease of manufacturing and servicing through digitization and remote monitoring. The industry will pivot towards cloud-based technology and artificial intelligence systems that will capture data and further analyze them to provide actionable insights.

What do you think is the impact of the need for energy efficiency in the Heating & Cooling Equipment industry?

The rising climate change and global warming has made us look for more energy efficient solutions in the heating and cooling segment. According to NITI Aayog’s report on Energy policy, the energy and emission intensities of India’s GDP have decreased by more than 20% over the past decade. This represents commendable progress even as total energy related carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise.

A major pharmaceutical company in India was facing challenges with regard to huge amount of energy consumption in running their cooling systems. The manufacturer turned towards a solution that included E-pumps with pressure sensors, incorporating Grundfos iSOLUTIONS. This enabled the company to maximize their energy efficiency and minimize energy usage. This also  ensured that the operations of the pumps always matched the system loads.

What are some key solutions offered by you for Cooling Tower and cooling applications?

We offer pumps of the TPE/NBE/CRE range which helps in optimising the cooling towers. These pumps have an Energy Efficiency Index (EEI) way below the EuP benchmark level, that helps in saving energy up to 75% when compared to a typical fixed speed pump.

A prominent Tyre manufacturer in India was looking at improving its system reliability and minimizing system loss to ultimately have significant savings on operating costs. The company implemented Grundfos’ products in their cooling towers along with iSOLUTIONS. The pump and control was built to complement each other and ensured reliable process optimization.

A Grundfos plant in Hungary was looking at optimising its cooling systems to reduce operating costs. It implemented the integrated and intelligent pump system through iSOLUTIONS combined with their existing pumping infrastructure. The intelligent algorithms improved on the existing cooling tower pump system making it more optimised and reliable. The plant saw an energy consumption drop of 70% when compared to their previous system.

How does Grundfos look at the automation and digitization in Heating & Cooling Equipment industry?

We foresee a significant change in the entire segment in the coming years, in terms of communication and digitalization, at the product designing level and overall optimisation of heating and cooling systems, compared to their individual components. Currently we see a growing trend to optimize the overall system efficiency rather than just component efficiency.

Few of our products and solutions that bring high performance and energy efficiency, while ensuring optimal comfort and safety in a wide range of applications, including air-conditioning, cooling and heating are:

Industrial Heating: Industrial heating covers circulators, heat recovery, boiler shunts, pressure holding systems and much more. The one thing these applications have in common is that downtime must be avoided at all costs. For industrial heating systems, Grundfos supplies high-efficiency heat pumps as part of industrial heating solutions that ensure maximum efficiency and minimal maintenance. Grundfos MAGNA pumps are electronically controlled and high efficiency circulator pumps for industrial heating applications.

Industrial boiler systems: Production lines depend heavily on efficient and reliable boiler operation. Grundfos steam boiler feed pumps, thermal oil pumps, hot water boiler pumps and hot oil pumps offer optimal performance in extreme conditions. If water pressure is too high for too long, you risk increased water loss, lower revenue and increased maintenance of pipes. Grundfos Energy Savings: Grundfos Energy Earnings is a service agreement aiming to replace outdated, inefficient pump systems with new, premium, energy-efficient pumps from Grundfos in an all-inclusive maintenance package. A one-stop shop service package for asset management, pump replacement and maintenance.

To ensure green operations and share sustainable solutions, what efforts are taken by Grundfos?

At Grundfos, sustainability is an essential principle of our product development process. We have a range of products and services that, while providing our clients top-of-the-line performance, also ensures they run a sustainable and eco-friendly operation. The pumps that we have sold throughout 2020 alone have helped our end-users reuse 1.5 billion m3 of water on a yearly basis (Grundfos 2020 sustainability report). We have set our sights on facilitating our end-users to save a total of 50 billion m3 of water by 2030.

Sustainability is in our DNA and is at the core of Grundfos’ principles, dictating how we do business. We implement principles of sustainability into our products and solutions, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 6 which aims to improve sanitation and access to clean water and SDG 13 on climate action. Going by our purpose statement, we are committed towards creating solutions to address the world’s water and climate challenges, thereby improving the quality of life for people across the globe.

At Grundfos, we have set our own goals of reducing water usage and emissions by 50% within 2025 as compared to 2008. We also aim to be a climate positive organization by the end of 2030. These are the main ambitions driving our sustainability initiatives.

For instance, water is essential in brewing companies as it is a vital element both as an ingredient and for cleaning during the brewing process. At its brewery in Fredericia, Denmark, Carlsberg Group has started installing water recycling technology where Grundfos solutions can support the brewery to reuse 90% of their process wastewater. Scheduled to be fully operational in 2021, it will be the world’s first brewery to virtually eliminate water waste, cutting the amount of water used to produce beer from 2.9 per hectolitre to 1.4 per hecto litre.