TERI-SDC Partnership - new phase (January 2005 - December 2008)

TERI has been one of the strategic partners of SDC since 1994. TERI and SDC have partnered in diverse research areas ranging from energy efficiency improvements in small-scale industries to global climate change. Continuous informal exchanges, openness and flexibility have been the hallmarks of the partnership. Projects focusing on improving energy and environment performance and socio-economic conditions of energy intensive small-scale industrial sub-sectors have been the flagship activity of the partnership. The initial few years of the TERI-SDC collaboration were spent on developing an understanding of the socio-economic, institutional and technological aspects of small-scale sector and identification of the four most promising sectors for intervention. The four sectors which were selected for intervention were grey iron foundries (cupolas), small-scale glass units (pot and muffle furnaces), brick kilns (mainly vertical shaft brick kilns) and biomass gasifier based thermal applications in various micro enterprise sectors. A few other activities, mainly in the Karnataka region were added later on. The subsequent activities focused on action research of cleaner technologies in these sectors, wherein full-scale demonstration plants were set-up in the field in close cooperation with various partners. TERI adopted a bottom-up participatory approach in all the sectors of intervention and involved the local stakeholders at every stage of decision-making. This resulted in integration of the concerns of the local industry in the overall project design. In all the sectors of intervention, the energy efficient and environmentally friendly technologies were successfully demonstrated. The energy savings achieved in various demonstrated technologies range from 20 to 40% , depending upon the sectors and the baselines. In all the cases, there is a reduction in air pollution and the substantial improvement in working conditions. During the past few years, pilot action work aimed at developing an understanding of the social reality in small scale clusters and integrating social concerns with the technological interventions has also been initiated and consolidated. TERI has now entered into a new four year agreement with SDC that combines all the previous initiatives in the foundry, glass, brick, thermal gasifiers and puffed rice sectors into a single umbrella agreement. The new project started in January 2005 and is, in a way consolidation of the sectoral work undertaken by TERI in these sectors during the past ten years of TERI-SDC collaboration. The specific objective of this new project is increased adoption of resource efficient technologies amongst the targeted end users in the identified sectors. The longer term goal of the project is improving the economic, environmental and social conditions for entrepreneurs and workers of Small and Micro Enterprises (SMIEs). TERI is the lead agency responsible for planning, implementation and monitoring of the project and to further develop a competence network over the next four year period. In this phase, TERI will be working with various partners - NGOs, local nodes (consultants, small firms, experts), industry associations and other sector institutions, as per the needs of the project.