A Clean Energy Transition Plan For India

Context: India has a long way to go in providing electricity security to its people since its per capita electricity consumption is still only a third of the global average.

Energy security challenges before India

• Policy paradox: Meeting aspirations of 1.3 billion populations while contributing to global climate mitigation efforts while safeguarding energy security.
• Heavy reliance on coal: India has abundant coal.
• Thermal power plants (TPP) contributed 71% of electricity generated by utilities during FY2020-21.
• But accounted for only 55% of total installed generation capacity of 382 GW (as of March 2021).
• Issues associated with expansion of renewable energy:
• Underutilization of renewable energy: Variable renewable energy (VRE) sources account for 7% of total installed generation capacity, but they contributed 10.7% of electricity generated by utilities during FY 2020-21.
• Protective policy cover: The rapid growth of VRE sources in India has been largely aided by policy measures as well as financial incentives whose cost is borne by consumer.
• Additional burden of grid integration: Current level of VRE in national power grid is increasing the cost of power procurement for DISCOMs, leading to tariff increases for electricity consumers.
• Forum of Regulators' estimation that the total additional burden of grid integration of VRE sources is Rs 2.13 per unit.
• Geopolitics of India’s neighbourhood does not permit direct access to piped natural gas.

Way forward: Optimising use of our land, coal, water, and financial resources with indigenous technology

• Time-bound transition plan involving progressive retirement of 36 GW of installed generation capacity in 211 TPPs (unit size 210 MW and below) based on key performance parameters such as efficiency, specific coal consumption, technological obsolescence, and age.
• Shortfall in baseload electricity generation can be made up by increasing the utilisation of existing High-Efficiency-Low-Emission (HELE) TPPs.
• Optimizing indigenous technical resources: Like Installation of high-efficiency electrostatic precipitators that can remove 99.97% of the PM pollution compared to imported flue gas desulphurisation plants (FGDs).