ABSTRACT
India has traditionally been a low energy and electricity consumption country, notwithstanding its large and fast growing population. This was partly because of the so-called Hindu rate of growth during the several decades after independence. The economic policy changes undertaken since early 1990s with greater participation of private sector and deregulation of infrastructure and industrial sectors resulted in higher growth rates of the Indian economy, which grew in the last decade at an annual rate of about 8%* although it has declined progressively to about 5% in the last 2-3 years because of the
CONTENTS
6.1Background ........................................................................................................................... 93 6.2Growth of Electricity Capacity .......................................................................................... 95 6.3New and Renewable Energy .............................................................................................. 97
6.3.1Solar Grid Developments ........................................................................................ 98 6.3.2Capacity Creation .................................................................................................... 98 6.3.3Policy Support ..........................................................................................................99 6.3.4Solar Power Policy ................................................................................................. 100 6.3.5Future Projections and Trends ............................................................................. 101 6.3.6Renewable Energy in Off-Grid Mode ................................................................. 101 6.3.7Energy Access ......................................................................................................... 102 6.3.8Cooking Energy ..................................................................................................... 103 6.3.9Carbon Emissions-Issue of Energy Intensity .................................................. 103
6.4Energy EfŽciency ............................................................................................................... 104 6.4.1Buildings ................................................................................................................. 104
6.4.1.1Electrical Appliances .............................................................................. 105 6.4.2Lighting ................................................................................................................... 105 6.4.3Industry ................................................................................................................... 105 6.4.4Agriculture ............................................................................................................. 106 6.4.5Future Directions ................................................................................................... 106
6.5Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 107 References ..................................................................................................................................... 107
global recession. But the chances are that growth may continue to be between 7% and 9% in the long term. This process is being accompanied by large-scale urbanization, growth of the middle class, and changing life styles, leading to a huge growth in buildings and cars and sale of electrical appliances topped by air conditioners, fridges, geysers, and microwaves. Necessarily therefore, there has been, and will continue to be, signiŽcant increases in India’s energy and electricity demand. In 2011, India was the fourth largest energy consumer in the world after the United States, China, and Russia.* India has been ranked by the IMF as the world’s tenth largest economy and the third largest in terms of purchasing power parity. India will continue to climb up this ladder. An Indian Planning Commission study in 2006 estimated that based on 8%–9% growth, primary energy demand may go up 4-5 times by 2031-2032, while electricity generation requirements may go up by 6-7 times. It estimated that electricity-generating capacity may have to go up to 7-800 GW.†
Energy services have always remained in focus of successive Indian governments that has resulted in the expansion of the energy infrastructure within the country and steady expansion in total energy use. Commercial energy use increased 21 times and the power generation capacity went up by 100 times during the past 60 years. In 2012, the total commercial energy supply was 537 million tons of oil equivalent (mtoe) and involved coal, oil, gas, and electricity generated from nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewable sources.‡ These Žgures do not include the energy that is consumed from traditional sources by 56% of Indian households.§ Estimates of energy use from traditional sources tend to be approximate, but Žgures indicate that in 2012, 174 mtoe of energy came from such sources as fuel wood, dung, crop residue, biogas, and waste.¶ India’s energy intensity has been declining over the years. From 1.09 kgoe per U.S. dollar, it has reduced to 0.62 kgoe per U.S. dollar in 2011.**
Nevertheless, the growth of energy sector could not and has not been able to match the growth in economy in spite of impressive progress in the last decade. The energy sector continues to be viewed as an important bottleneck to India’s industrial growth that in turn is seen as critical to stimulating the country’s economic and social development. While supporting around 17.8% of the world population, India’s share in world energy use and electricity consumption is only 5.7% and 4.0%, respectively.†† The percapita energy use at around 0.60 toe is far below that of industrialized countries, and, more importantly, is almost only a third of the world average. The situation in per-capita electricity consumption is even worse with a per-capita annual consumption of only 710 kWh, which is around a fourth of the world average.‡‡ In fact, in the event of achieving the capacities of 7-800 GW, the per-capita primary energy consumption will rise only to almost 1.25 toe, which would still be much lower than the current world average of about 1.88 toe/capita/annum.§§ Electricity deŽcit levels have remained consistently high
in recent years with supply trailing requirement by an estimated 8%–10%.* And this may not even be re¡ecting the total demand. Another major challenge continues to be providing access to modern energy sources to a large proportion of the country’s population. Around 45% of rural households still rely on kerosene for meeting their lighting requirements.† Further, around 86% of rural households and more than 20% of the urban households still rely primarily on traditional fuels such as Žrewood, wood chips, or dung cakes to meet their cooking needs.
