Saravanan Panneer Selvam, General Manager, Grundfos India in this free-wheeling interaction talks about his product solutions and how Grundfos has made rapid strides in conservation of water and energy.

Could you tell us about Grundfos journey into the water sector so far?
Grundfos was founded in 1945 by Poul Due Jensen and provided company’s first pump Foss 1. From producing 500 pumps in 1947 to 50,000 in 1959, Grundfos has since become one of the world’s leading providers of pump solutions with annual production standing at more than 17 million units. The company now has more than 19,000 employees across its 83 companies in 56 countries.

Grundfos entered the Indian market 21 years back and has been able to change the face of the pump industry with its intelligent and pioneering advanced pumping solutions. Over these years, the company has exhibited an average growth of 20 per cent with sustainability at the core of its operations and products. The company has not only grown in terms of its business, market share and presence nationally but has also focused on helping India conserve water and energy through its sustainable solutions and initiatives.

What would be the three most important issues in the Indian pump industry in the coming years?
a) Inefficient pumps: Pumps account for a massive 10 per cent of the world’s electricity consumption and yet 9 out of 10 pumps in operation today are not optimised. Reducing energy consumption lowers operation cost and conserves water, which in turn helps in savings and causing minimal impact to environment. Replacing inefficient pumps with energy efficient pumps like Grundfos would help to save 4 per cent of the world’s electricity consumption. This would in turn additionally result in saving two billion m3 of freshwater supplies.

b) Copying of products: Grundfos is a pioneer in the pumping industry and our products are copied rampantly. Though these pumps look like our products, their quality and efficiencies are nowhere close to ours.

c) Global trade situations: The trade war between the US and China is increasing the costs of components. This is impacting the pump industry in larger and us too.

How does your company approach sustainability?
Grundfos approaches sustainability at three levels. Firstly, by building pioneering and innovative technologies that are highly energy efficient as they help reduce water stress. Secondly, by partnering and strengthening their stakeholder engagement in achieving shared goals. And lastly, by having a sustainability mindset in everything we do.

The company contributes towards energy and water conservation by reducing its own impact on the environment. The company’s headquarters in Chennai is the country’s first gold-rated green building (LEED certification by USGBC in 2005) and is energy efficient with 100 per cent recycling of the sewage, rain water harvesting and with solar collectors and photovoltaics. Grundfos India’s factory also received the gold certification in 2011 from the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC). In August 2013, the Grundfos India office building was elevated to a LEED EB Platinum certification. The company also works towards restoring water bodies and providing access to water to rural communities as part of its CSR initiatives.

Could you highlight some of your technologies that help to conserve water and reduce energy usage?
Our company develops water solutions for the world and has set standard in terms of innovation, efficiency, reliability and sustainability. We are a pump company connecting with millions and millions of people every day. Our solutions help our partners and customers move water to where it is supposed to go. Providing drinking water for the smallest villages and the highest skyscrapers, treating and removing wastewater and bringing heat and comfort to the world – or cool it down if needed. Grundfos provides comprehensive pump solutions with its applications across domestic, commercial, industrial, water utilities and many more.

Grundfos innovative solutions are built on adaptive technologies concept and they are as follows:

• iSOLUTIONS: This range of intelligent pump solutions were developed to look beyond individual components and to optimise the entire system. This system helps to control, monitor and optimise water systems even in the most demanding situations across commercial buildings, industry and water utility.
• Demand Driven Distribution: This multi-pump solution enables the distribution of water as per the demand thereby helping to address leakage which is one of the largest sources of water loss. This offers precise amount of water flow based on its demand thereby contributing to significantly towards saving energy, water and operating cost.
• Remote Management System: A solution that was designed for smart cities to help monitor pump installations in commercial buildings, water supply networks, wastewater plants, etc. The system enables to track changes in pump performance and energy consumption to automatically generated reports to plan maintenance and reduce downtime.

Can Grundfos solutions be deployed in existing infrastructure too?
Yes, Grundfos provides retrofitting with modern high efficiency pumps to combat the wastage of energy and water. When considering replacement pumps, generally people fail to realise it is not the initial cost, but the whole of life cost that is important, therefore, to identify which product is the perfect fit for the existing building, Grundfos works closely with the customers and carries out pump audits. The pump audit is a diagnostic tool to identify excessive energy consumption in any kind of pumping system. Our experience with pump audits shows that 30-50 per cent of the energy consumed by pumps could be saved which translates into significant potential savings for installations, and a little extra relief for the environment.

How much of Grundfos focus is on research and development?
Innovation has been key to Grundfos pioneering technologies. The company therefore invests five per cent of its profits in R&D.

Saravanan Panneer Selvam, General Manager, Grundfos India