India’s Renewable Energy: Vision and Reality

India’s substantial and sustained economic growth over the years is placing enormous demand on its energy resources. Inspite of the substantial increase in installed electricity capacity in India, demand has outstripped supply. Thus, there is an emerging energy supply demand imbalance. This is a major reason for which promoting clean (renewable) energy in India has assumed great importance in recent years in view of high growth rate of energy consumption, high share of coal in domestic energy demand, heavy dependence on imports for meeting demands for petroleum fuels and volatility of world oil market. A number of renewable energy technologies (RETs) are now well established in the country. The technology that has achieved the most dramatic growth rate and success is wind energy; India ranks fourth in the world in terms of total installed capacity. India hosts the world’s largest small gasifier programme and second largest biogas programme. After many years of slow growth, demand for solar water heaters appears to be gaining momentum. Small hydro has been growing in India at a slow but steady pace. Installation of some of the technologies appears to have slowed down in recent years; these include improved cooking stoves (ICSs). However, in the solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar based power generation sector, India has been making remarkable progress in the last two years due to the creation of conducive environment for investment as well as relatively pro-development government policies and regulations.

In spite of these successes, the overall growth of renewable energy in India has remained rather slow. Significant barriers to renewable energy development remain in India. Given the high upfront capital costs of renewable energy technologies, financial barriers are substantial. But nonfinancial barriers are equally important in limiting the growth of renewable energy. Barriers can be grouped into three categories: financial viability, support infrastructure, and regulatory approval. A number of factors are likely to boost the future prospects of renewable energy in the country; these include global pressure and voluntary targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction, a possible future oil crisis, intensification of rural electrification program, import of hydropower from neighboring countries, focusing on energy efficiency as a distinctive market segment and lastly introducing a more robust and sustainable financing in the cleantech sector, which can be made available to promoters and developers of RETs against a performance based market mechanism. And, this is the bottom-line for renewable energy development in India.

Therefore, it is felt that the country needs a new set of strategies and approaches for cleantech development and promotion in India. Currently, there are good numbers of visions in place, including the vision of 100% Renewable Energy Scenario (REN) for India by the middle of the century against a reference scenario in which the economy is likely to be dependent primarily on fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas. But this type of vision also needs short term pragmatic workplan, which could help the country to meet the current needs and demand. Energy is central to achieving the interrelated economic, social, and environmental aims of sustainable human development. if India is to realize this important goal, the kinds of energy India produces and the ways it uses them will have to change. Otherwise, environmental damage will accelerate, inequity will increase, and economic growth will be jeopardized.

It will be timely to the current government to address these issues.

 

Keshav C Das

Senior Advisor, Renewable Energy

Netherlands Development Organisation

ENERGY SMART FOOD – LINKING FOOD AND CLEAN ENERGY

If energy prices continue to rise, the global food sector will face increased risks and lower profits. The efforts from low-GDP countries to emulate high-GDP countries in achieving increases in productivity and efficiencies in both small and large-scale food systems may be constrained by high energy costs. Lowering the energy inputs in essential areas, such as farm mechanization, transport, heat, electricity and fertilizer production, can help the food sector mitigate the risks from its reliance on fossil fuels. Hence, a major focus of food processing industries should be to reduce energy demand and/or promoting efficient energy management as well as introducing renewable energy technologies (RETs) to reduce the food sector’s dependence on fossil fuels. Indeed, introduction of RETs should happen from field to factory (processing) and up to the retail-outlet.  

The encouraging development is that there is increasing consensus on the necessity on energy smart food and very recently in a study on energy-smart food, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) stresses that agriculture’s dependence on fossil fuels is undermining efforts to build a more sustainable world economy. The paper, which is titled “Energy-Smart Food at FAO: An Overview[1],” notes that world food production consumes 30% of all available energy, most of which occurs after the food leaves the farm. The paper calls for: increasing the efficiency of direct and indirect energy use in agri-food systems; using more renewable energy as a substitute for fossil fuels; and improving access to energy services for poor households. It outlines numerous approaches to adapt practices to become less energy intensive.

However, to promote the campaign on energy smart food, we need affordable technologies at farm-level and food processing level. Unfortunately, most of the ‘energy efficient’ technologies in the agriculture sector of developing countries are expensive and not within the reach of poor farmers. Similarly, financing is also pivotal. Most farmers do not have upfront investment for introducing energy efficient devices in to their farm operations. Can we think of introducing a concessional loan systems into the farm system to meet this requirement as well as provide a really doable and practical contract farming model to the farmers, where, farmers will receive advance market commitments from global retailers and big MNCs in food market chain, and therefore, farmers will be in a comfortable situation to produce more and trade more? Indeed, agriculture insurance is also a key and obligatory intervention in the current context; particularly to reduce the risk of damage and loss due to climate change related adverse effects.

We also need enabling policies: strong and long-term supporting policies and innovative multi-stakeholder institutional arrangements are required if the food sector is to become energy-smart for both households and large corporations. Financial policies to support the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy will also be necessary to facilitate the development of energy-smart food systems. Examples exist of cost-effective policy instruments and inclusive business schemes that have successfully supported the development of the food sector. These exemplary policy instruments will need to be significantly scaled up if a cross-sectoral landscape approach is to be achieved at the international level.

Indeed, development organisations like SNV Netherlands Development Organisation has a major role to play in this domain so that the agriculture sector of developing countries are ready for the deployment of appropriate technologies; introduction, sharing and adaptation of energy-smart technologies; and carrying out capacity building, support services, and education and training on energy smart food production supply chain. Nevertheless, addressing the energy-water-food-climate nexus is a crucial and complex challenge. It demands significant and sustained efforts at all levels of governance: local, national and international.

 

Keshav C Das

Senior Advisor, Renewable Energy and Climate Finance

SNV Netherlands Development Organisation

 

[1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i2454e/i2454e00.pdf