Coal in Net Zero era

Sumit Maitra

Year 2020, despite all its nightmarish devastations, provided a vision of a future where there would be much less emission. The skies were clearer and distant mountain tops could be seen.

Global carbon emissions fell 7 percent last year due as the economies were shut driving the fall in global energy demand.

While oil and coal consumption dropped, renewables were less affected by the pandemic. Installed renewable energy reached almost 200 gigawatts (GW) globally.

The world is now moving towards the reality of Net Zero by 2050 with countries around the world pledging carbon and climate neutrality.

Developed economies like the US, the European Union, China, Japan, South Korea and also developing countries such as Chile, Brazil, and South Africa have disclosed their Net Zero goal in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) updates.

China targets to become carbon neutral by 2060.

Awareness among political players is growing with more political actors in India now committed to climate actions.

As a signatory to the Paris accord, India is on its way to adopt a low-carbon future, and has set a 450 GW of Renewable Energy (RE) capacity target by 2030.

Hence, in India, incremental power demand is expected to be largely met by addition of RE capacity in the country.

Energy transitions are underway and inevitable, even amid the pandemic.

Current market trends show the energy landscape is in transition towards more flexible energy systems with a rapidly increasing share of renewable energy, declining inflexible baseload generation and wider applications of storage technology.

“The declining costs of renewables have begun to reduce new investments into coal and other inflexible baseload technologies; a transition which will eventually cause renewables to become the new baseload,” says a recent report by Wartsila, a technology company that works with energy transition.

In 2017 itself, 14 percent of electricity generation worldwide was attributed to wind and solar.

Energy, as Power Secretary Alok Kumar puts it, is at the centre of all deliberations, discussions and negotiations in the development agendas in most countries.

In it, the issue of energy transition, inevitably, becomes the main agenda.

“Energy transition is the need of the hour. How we manage our transition is going to affect all the countries, all the communities, all the households and each and every human being. Almost all major countries have committed to themselves through their nationally determined contributions that they plan to do for a better planet,” Kumar said while addressing the BRICS Green Hydrogen Summit recently hosted by NTPC.

“When we talk of energy transition, the technological aspect becomes the key. This decade will see the best use of available technologies including electric mobility, which we will implement with full force. Then there is floating solar power plants, offshore wind energy. Energy efficiency is another key area which will drive the transition in a large way.

International Energy Agency, in its Roadmap for Net Zero by 2050, says Renewable Energy technologies like solar and wind are the key to reducing emissions in the electricity sector, which is today the single largest source of CO2 emissions.

“In our pathway to Net Zero, almost 90 percent of global electricity generation in 2050 comes from renewable sources, with solar PV and wind together accounting for nearly 70 percent,” IEA said.

For IEA, Net Zero implies a rapid shift away from fossil fuels, which signifies significant fall in the use of coal, oil and gas.

“This requires phasing out all unabated coal and oil power plants by 2040 and steps such as halting sales of new internal combustion engine passenger cars by 2035,” the roadmap suggests.

“Energy transition is the need of the hour. How we manage our transition is going to affect all the countries, all the communities, all the households and each and every human being.” Alok Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Power

G7 endorses Net Zero by 2050 roadmap

The Group of Seven (G7) leaders showed strong commitment to reach Net Zero by mid-century when they met earlier this month and endorsed IEA’s 2050 roadmap.

During the meeting in south-west England, the leaders of the world’s largest market economies called on all countries, in particular major emitting economies, to join them to make that goal a reality.

The IEA’s Roadmap to Net Zero by 2050 was released in May and is considered to be the world’s first comprehensive study of how to transition to a net zero energy system globally by 2050 while maintaining robust economic growth and ensuring stable, affordable and universal energy supplies.

Reaching net zero means using energy more efficiently

The deployment of new solar, wind and battery technology may get more attention, but a key pillar for reaching net-zero emissions is simply using energy more efficiently.