Addressing the press, K Vasudevan, chairman, 'energy summit 2004' said, "There is a potential to save energy costs to the tune of Rs10,000 crore. The business potential for energy conservation players is around Rs20,000 crore."

The summit comprises three major events — National Award for Excellence in Energy Management, EnCon & Renewable Energy Technology Meet and Oil & Gas Meet.

For the first time in its history, the Energy Summit will have an exclusive session on oil and gas sectors. " The world over the focus now is on improving environment management in exploration and refining in the oil and gas sectors. The other aspects are fuel specifications, upgrading the refineries and fuel for transportation," added Vasudevan.

One of the notable features of Energy Summit is the award for energy efficient corporates. According to Vasudevan, 146 corporates have applied for the award this year. "They have saved around Rs450 crore in energy costs."

The number of corporates who apply for the CII's energy conservation award is on the rise compared to earlier years. Similarly companies belonging to diverse segments-pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, paper, metal, glass, foundry etc have sent their claim for the award.

For the past several years CII has been evangelising energy conservation in cement sector, which has now emerged as one of the most energy-efficient in the world. While the world average of energy consumption to produce one tonne of cement is 100 kWh the Indian industry average is 95 kWh/t.

"India houses the most energy-efficient cement unit in the world. The units consumes 69 kWh per tonne of cement production," remarked Vasudevan.

Remarked S Raghupathy, senior director & head CII-Godrej Green Business Centre, "We have taken a sectoral approach for energy conservation and later replicate the learnings in other industries. Our present target is to make three Indian power plants to be the world's most energy efficient."