Greener thumb for energy efficiency?

CONTEXT: Recently, The United Nations Secretary General urged India to turn away from building coal firing power plants, while India’s efforts towards enhancing the share of renewable energy is a step in right direction. 

Benefits Of Renewable Energy for India

• Reduced Pollution: Mitigating air, water and land pollution.

•  Low share in global emission (currently at 6%) and low per capita emission( 1.6 tonnes of CO2  against global average of 4.4 tonnes)

• Meeting Future Need due to increased urbanisation: By 2040 Electricity demand will be tripled, 40% houses to be Air conditioned ( currently 5% homes)

• India has envisaged RE capacity at 450 GW, to be utilised in future compared to total current energy generating capacity of 365 GW.

• Economic: 

• Reduced India’s import dependency for oil, 
• Renewable with efficient technology can save $190 Billion per year in energy imports by 2040 
• Improvement in Balance of payment and Forex reserve.

Government Efforts:

• Commitment to raise Renewable Energy share: India opted to enhance share of renewable energy in energy basket to 40% by 2022 (Currently at 22%) at the Paris Climate Summit in 2015.
• Coal Cess: Coal is taxed, heavily, to reflect its environmental costs, incentivising the shift to cleaner fuels.

• Improved Efficiency: by enacting Energy Conservation Act,2001 and setting up Bureau of Energy Efficiency,2002(BEE).

• BEE took a series of initiatives such as public outreach and energy labelling.
• Energy Trading: was started by Perform, Trade and Achieve(PAT) Scheme which helped in cogeneration and monetising saved-energy certificates.

• Demand side efforts: by investing in private energy efficient companies which invest in efficient technology resulting into following positive impact.

• It resulted in saving 300 million tonnes of emission since 2000-18.
• Reduced annual increase in energy consumption by 15%.
• The energy intensity of India’s GDP decreased by more than 20% over the past decade.

• Alternative Technologies: India has been investing and testing various alternative technology of energy such as

• Hydrogen spiked CNG: was tested on buses in Delhi. 
• FAME(Faster Adoption and Manufacture of (hybrid and ) electric vehicles) programme.

Way Forward:

• Key Driver for India to achieve ‘Net Zero Emission’: Currently Regions, countries and cities combined GDP of $39 Billion have joined to achieve ‘Net Zero Emission’ by 2050. India has some key drivers converging towards the goal:

• Low stock of dirty technology (Coal): will help India transition faster into an energy efficient nation through leapfrogging through buying or developing efficient technology

• For E.g. Providing finance incentive for green and efficient technology and  scale effect will reduce cost for Air conditioner, Pumps, etc.

• Domestic Imperative to provide Clean Air: and declutter urban habitats will diversify the use of gas and RE applications.
• Urban Management: By 2040 nearly half of India will be in Urban spaces:

• Doubling of urban housing and upgrade slums will improve energy intensity.
• The downside to urbanisation is the red flag of higher energy intensity.

• In 2015-16, the global reduction of 3.1exajoules (EJ) in energy use due to higher technical efficiency was neutralized by 3.4 EJ increase in energy use due to population increase and higher floor area per person.
• India has more than 5,000 ‘Green buildings’, but only one — the Godrej & Boyce office at Vikhroli, Mumbai — ‘Net Zero’ building.

Conclusion: Deep governance improvements and capacity development will broaden the trend of ‘Green Building’.