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India at the
Cross Roads for I ndia’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) starts with the ‘Climate Justice’ title and the proposed targets of mitigation and adaptation reflect the efforts being made to bring in equity by addressing expectations of all. If its adaptation targets indicate that India is committed to provide a decent lifestyle that is climate resilient to its domestic stakeholders, its mitigation targets indicate that the country is committed to fulfil its role in the global society for stabilising the carbon concentration in the atmosphere in line with below 2 degree C temperature goal.Though the INDC is on lower side of its 47% reduction of emission intensity for GDP fair share as assessed by CAN South Asia in its paper on ‘India’s fair Share’ 1 released in July 2015, but compared to the majority of rich countries as assessed by CSO review released on 19th October 2015, it has put forward numbers that are ambitious in the
present context of vague means of implementation i.e. finance and
technology framework. Before sharing my assessment on our country’s INDC,
I would like to draw attention on the 175 GW of electricity generation
from renewable energy (RE) by 2022 target set domestically by India.
This is being considered as very ambitious and we believe it is one of
the efforts to move away from fossil fuel economy on a long term basis.
The numbers are still considered to be un-realistic considering the rate
of around 2 GW per year at which RE has been growing but if serious
efforts are made to accomplish the 2022 RE target and adequate support
is made available through bi-lateral / multi-lateral partnerships, India
is expected to achieve atleast 36% of its electric power installed
capacity from non-fossil fuels. Success on the RE target of 175 GW in
the next 7 years could unlock a ‘RE revolution’ leading to crossing
announced target of 40% energy from non-fossil sources or even touching
300 GW RE by 2030.
Climate Action Plan in the form of INDC also pitches for adding ‘Clean Coal’ technology and this still leaves us with fossil fuel to be the major source of energy in the next 30 years or more. The continuance of coal in India is due to non-availability of affordable alternative sources of energy that can drive economic growth for achieving the basic development challenges. With per capita net income of approximately 1400 USD in 2014-15, the energy from alternative sources needs to be affordable. Though in the last 2 years, the cost of solar energy has reduced from INR 16/unit (0.22 EUR cent) to INR 7/unit (0.09 EUR cent), but the prevailing cost of INR 2/unit (0.02 EUR cent) from conventional sources is still not in range of the amount consumers are paying. Further, the nature of RE is intermittent and uncertain. There is a need for huge investments in smart grid and need for storage technologies that allow the availability of power from RE 100% of the time. This investment competes with investment for other social sectors and also this investment will make the cost of delivered RE much higher than a pure comparison based on cost per unit of power. Two factors that need to be considered towards energy security are energy demand and energy supply in a country. The energy supply option alone is not enough to address the issue of growth with low carbon impact. Thus energy efficiency is a must and key to transitioning to 100% renewable energy. Technologies and investible resources are key to enable a switch to more efficient technologies and approaches, especially in the sector of buildings. Further, on the demand side, the energy demand for a decent level of living is direct and indirect. Direct demand is for use by households, which is a smaller fraction than the indirect demand of goods and materials to be produced and transported for a decent level of living. Further, there is a challenge of meeting the huge electricity demand of the industry. While traditional dependence high on coal (43% in the Primary Energy Mix in 2011-12), efforts are being made to diversify to other reliable energy sources. The issue of technology access, costs to consumers and favourable policy frameworks will be decisive factors in achieving low-carbon growth strategy. Energy security at any cost remains a primary goal followed by the secondary goal of environment integrity and thus policies recently have been focussing on enhancing the efficiency and add energy from clear sources like renewables and nuclear. The US-Japan deal to not fund coal projects in developing countries could have reverse impacts in terms of unsustainable mining, use of high ash content coal and compromise on energy efficiency efforts to secure energy for growth. With coal reserves of 28,58,000 million tonnes, the only way to reduce its utilisation in future is by making renewable technologies accessible at affordable costs and support promotion of local innovation. India’s push for ‘Make in India’ provides such an opportunity to scale up climate-friendly energy generation. A part of the reason why fossil fuel based electricity generation still continues is because of the intermittent and unreliable availability of renewable energy. Higher integration of RE in grid in the absence of mass scale storage technologies would require conventional resource based electricity generation as a balancing power. The reason India is exploring nuclear is to shift from coal to nuclear as the balancing power in the grid. But this increases the cost of RE integration as redundant capacities have to be created in the system. The success on energy efficiency by replacing conventional high energy consuming bulbs to efficient CFLs and now to LEDs has added to the confidence of energy planners in India. Similar success in the renewable sector in the near future could play in important role in moving towards the twin goal of energy security and environmental integrity without conflicting with each other. India aspires to achieve HDI of 0.9 2 and inclusive growth is expected to increase the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if it follows the business as usual path of development. Growth in GHG emissions would arise from increase in energy consumption per capita due to growing incomes, increasing shift from traditional biomass energy to commercial energy in the household sector and increased demand for consumption of goods with growing incomes. GHG emissions will also grow if the past dependence on fossil fuel continues. Thus it is necessary that sectors that provide low carbon development potential are tapped.• One of the areas with great potential for greenhouse gas mitigation is increasing the efficient usage of existing power generation and transmission systems as India’s technical and distribution losses are currently very high. • There is also much potential in the residential sector, which contributed to 25% of the total electricity consumption in 2011. A huge stock of new buildings will be constructed from now on to 2030 and reports suggest potential of about 50% reduction from current consumption levels. • Transport is another key sector. Efficiency norms in public and private passenger transport, freight transport and increased public transport in urban areas have high potential for low carbon growth. • Industry consumes around 50% of the total final energy demand. Thus improving energy efficiency in SMEs, which have high employment and inclusive growth potential and introducing efficiency standards that make industries competitive as well as address energy security concerns is important. Existing policies have indeed introduced such measures, but in absence of efficient technologies, the policies may fall short of their goals. • Significant potential exists for reducing energy use and hence GHG emissions through energy efficiency measures. A number of programmes and measures are already being implemented in these sectors. Further strengthening these measures and upscaling them could contribute to about 19% emissions reduction below BAU. After all the efficiency measures in the short run in conventional sources of energy, promotion of renewable energy needs to be carried out in India for long term ‘Energy Security’ and to support successful implementation of SDG Goals like access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all (Goal 7); Build resilient infrastructure (Goal 9) and Combat climate change and its impacts (Goal 13). This needs to be promoted on two fronts: • Softer issues like building support in favour of green sources of energy, mobilising stakeholders by answering the apprehensions with respect to feasibility of RE in normal day to day life, making policy frameworks friendly to RE promotion etc. • Infrastructure related challenges that India faces like storage of generated energy, smart grids to access energy generation from diverse sources, upgrades of distribution lines etc. Financial assistance of €1 billion by Germany for the implementation of the green energy corridors project with a network of transmissions lines dedicated to carrying power generated from renewable energy projects across India is welcoming and came at right time. The Cooperation with Germany is an example of bi-lateral partnerships that can address the challenges India faces with respect to infrastructure while also sharing the approaches followed to overcome policy / political challenges. The idea of creating a ‘Grand Solar Alliance’ in COP 21 by India and Africa is an example that South-South Cooperation could be win-win solutions as well. q Sanjay Vashist Endnotes
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