Capitalise on carbon credits, if your project is in the planning stage

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: We are setting up a three star hotel project in Himachal Pradesh. We are told that we could earn more by generating carbon credits. What are the carbon credits? To which agency we should apply for registration? Kindly also tell us from where we could have more details.
— DS Mann

You can indeed generate extra income as your project is at the planning stage. In 1997, a World Earth Summit was organised at Kyoto, Japan, which resulted in a multi-lateral agreement to save the earth from the damage being caused to the environment by Green House Gasses (GHGs).

Some 160 odd countries ratified the agreement under which the signatory countries agreed to limit their green house emissions to the respective levels of 1990. Those countries that are producing GHGs in excess to the agreed levels are required to offset their excesses by buying credits. This is known as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or more commonly, Carbon trading.

Carbon credits are awarded to companies/projects that replace the GHG producing mechanisms/technologies with the environment friendly mechanisms. Therefore, some countries can produce excess carbon credits because they produce less polluting gases, whereas some may have to buy such credit to meet their obligations. The latter countries pass these obligations to the companies that emit GHGs.

Ultimately, it is the commercial organisations that would be selling or buying credits. That is how a market mechanism is created. Since developing countries can start with clean technologies, they are more likely to generate these credits, which they can sell to those who require credits, chiefly industrialised countries like the US and EU, to meet their obligations.

In this case, you could employ a range of energy saving devices and use better products to save energy. Your project would fall under category Type II of energy efficiency projects.

For example, you could achieve that by replacing condensers, STL pumps and production pumps etc. with low consumption and high efficiency pumps; incandescent lamps by PL & CFLs; feet electronic chokes by electronic chokes; by installing variable frequency drives; heat recovery wheel (which recovers the heat from the exhaust and reduces the load on the A/C plant). You could also install auto power factor control panel among other things.

By each such replacement, you could calculate the energy saved and build your case to be considered for carbon credits.