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Power
India is breaking all records on power demand front. Here is why
India's power demand, a barometer of economic activity and progress, is growing at a historic pace in the current financial year. The trend, a result of a multitude of factors boosting industrial and residential load, is likely to continue for some time, say experts. Power demand in the country usually grows in a range between 2 per cent and 7 per cent yearon-year. However, the massive lockdown imposed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic last year, pulled down electricity consumption to 6.6 per cent. According to data sourced from Central Electricity Authority( CEA), the all India peak power demand in the period between April-August 2021 stood at 203,014 MW, as compared to 171,510 MW in the same period last year. In the northern region, Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest power demand of 24,965 MW with the region's total demand at 73,461 MW. Next was Maharashtra from the western region with 25,653 MW of peak demand with the region's total demand at 60,966 MW.
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R K Singh meets US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry in Delhi
Union Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh has met US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry here and discussed various issues related to climate change and energy transition. India and the US launched the Climate Action and Finance Mobilisation Dialogue (CAFMD) under the India-US Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership. Kerry called on Singh and had a discussion on various matters related to climate change and energy transition. Later, the Kerry-led delegation deliberated on those issues with Singh and his top brass. The CAFMD is one the two main tracks of the US-India Agenda 2030 Partnership that President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced at the Leaders Summit on Climate in April 2021.
There cannot be 'one-size-fits-all solution': India at UN high-level dialogue on energy
Emphasising that energy transition has to be just, inclusive and equitable, India has stressed that there cannot be a "one-size-fits-all solution" as it underlined the importance of the need to be fully sensitive to the energy-mix and national circumstances of different countries.
In a video statement to the UN High Level Dialogue on Energy 2021 held recently on the sidelines of the 76th General Assembly session, Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy R K Singh said India has set an ambitious target of 450 gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy capacity by 2030 and is all set to launch a National Hydrogen Energy Mission to scale up in a major way the use of green hydrogen toward decarbonisation of the economy. Green hydrogen is created using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. It has the potential to provide clean power for manufacturing, transportation, and the only byproduct is water.
Power ministry invokes RBI pact to recover Rs 30,087 crore dues from states
Overdues of Central generation companies (gencos) have dropped by nearly a third to Rs 35,314 crore in August from Rs 49,780 crore a year after the power ministry invoked tripartite agreements with defaulting states and the RBI to recover outstanding amounts and asked power plants under its wings to snap supply to utilities that failed to pay their bills on time. Under Raj Kumar Singh’s watch, the ministry has invoked tripartite agreements with Jharkhand, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for recovery of combined overdues of Rs 30,087 crore, taking a politically non-partisan approach in tackling one of the banes of India’s power sector. As of August 31, Jharkhand had an outstanding of Rs 3,292 crore. The ministry recovered Rs 714 crore by invoking the tripartite agreement and has served notice for recovery of Rs 1,126 crore. Karnataka discoms had an outstanding of Rs. 5,240 crore. Recovery notices have been issued for overdues of Rs 1,540 crore. Tamil Nadu discom had an outstanding of Rs 21,555 crore and notice for recovery of Rs 2,458 crore has been issued.
Tripartite agreements are a payment security mechanism for power supplied from Central gencos to states. It is signed by a state, the ministry and the RBI. In case a state discom fails to pay its bill, it becomes the state government’s liability. The ministry can then debit the amount from the state’s account with the RBI.
Power Ministry revises SHAKTI coal auction to improve Coal supply
In order to make more coal available to power plants that do not have any power purchase agreement (PPA), the union power ministry agreed to changes in the guidelines for SHAKTI scheme.
SHAKTI, or Scheme for Harnessing Scheme for
Harnessing and Allocating Koyala Transparently in India, was launched in 2018 to provide coal to stressed power units which lack coal supply. The power ministry in a meeting with Association of Power Producers (APP), the representative body for private gencos, agreed to three separate windows for auction--3 months, 6 months and one year. "In order to make coal available for a longer period, MoP will examine whether the duration of auction can be extended for more than one year. Issue of Bank Guarantee is also to be examined if duration has to be extended beyond one year," said a statement by the ministry.
Sluggish power demand may pose problem for new power plants in Bengal
As the demand for power in West Bengal is not growing as per projection, it may pose problems for the sector once under construction plants become operational, a senior official said.
The 19th Energy Power Survey Report of the Central Government had predicted that the annual power demand in the state would be 65,000 million units in 2021-22 but it was 42,000 million units in FY'21, the official said.
If a power plant fails to sell its full production, then it will earn low revenue resulting in hardship in debt servicing, the official said. Central funding in building power infrastructure is also squeezed leading to a greater fiscal burden on states, the official said.
Government constitutes task force, expert committee on coalbased hydrogen production
The Centre said it has constituted a task force and expert committee to prepare a road map for coal-based hydrogen production. This is aimed at contributing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's agenda of a hydrogen-based economy in a clean manner.
"Ministry of Coal has constituted 2 Committees recently, one to oversee the program and another of experts to give guidance to the Ministry," the coal ministry said in a statement.
The task force has been constituted under the chairmanship of Coal Additional Secretary Vinod Kumar Tiwari. Its broad terms of reference include monitoring of activities towards achieving coal-based hydrogen production and usage and coordination with Coal Gasification Mission and NITI Aayog.
The broad terms of reference of the expert committee include identifying experts in India and co-opting as members, desk-based review of progress in hydrogen technology and also reviewing ongoing research projects in hydrogen technology.
Draft open access norms can be a tailwind for new renewable projects: CRISIL
The Draft Electricity (promoting renewable energy through Green Energy Open Access) Rules, 2021, announced by the Ministry of Power, if implemented, could improve the certainty of cash flows for new renewable energy projects coming up through this route, said CRISIL Ratings.
“Given the government’s target of installing 450 GW of renewable capacity by 2030, the draft rules, if finalised, would be a timely measure as these can provide a fillip to open access renewable energy capacity addition,” said Aditya Jhaver, Director, CRISIL Ratings.
He added that considering commercial and industrial (C&I) consumers account for almost 50 per cent of all power consumption in India, and have their own go-green initiatives, the open access route can support likely strong demand pull from these consumers.
India’s coal-fired power output falls 1.5%, renewables jump in September
India’s coal-fired electricity generation so far this month fell 1.5% from year earlier, while power output from renewable energy jumped 53.6%, a Reuters analysis of government data showed.
The slowdown in coal-fired power output and a pickup in renewable energy generation could provide relief to utilities across the country which are struggling with a coal shortage, forcing India to ask power plants to import coal. Overall electricity generation growth slowed to 1% in the first half of September, a review of daily load despatch data by federal grid regulator POSOCO showed, much slower than the 16.1% growth in August which had resulted in a 23.7% increase in coal-fired output. Renewable energy output rose 53.6% in September, driven by a more than doubling of wind power production and an 18.6% rise in solar power generation, the POSOCO data showed, making up for a 5.3% fall in hydro power output, and a 33.7% decline in gas-fired power.
Bids for 4,000 MWhr battery storage projects to be invited soon: Power Minister R K Singh
India will soon invite global bids for battery storage projects totalling 4,000 MWhr (megawatt hours), Union Power Minister R K Singh said. He made the announcement while addressing the US India Strategic Partnership Forum and industry leaders in a Virtual Energy Industry Roundtable, the Ministry of Power said in a statement.
Singh added that a battery project of 12 gigawatt hours (GWhr) will be set up in Ladakh. India has set an ambitious target of having 175 GW renewable energy (RE) capacity by 2022 and 450 GW by 2030. At present, India has 100 GW installed solar and wind capacity and after adding hydro, the total installed renewable capacity is 146 MW, he said.
Another 63 GW of renewable capacity is under construction, Singh said. The minister also informed the conference that India would be inviting bids for green hydrogen in the next 3-4 months to pave the way for viable usage of hydrogen as fuel.
State-owned BHEL has announced the commissioning of India's largest floating solar photovoltaic plant in Andhra Pradesh. Located at NTPC Simhadri in Andhra Pradesh, the 25-megawatt floating SPV project covers an area of 100 acres, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) said without disclosing the project cost. BHEL said its scope of work in the project included design, engineering, procurement and construction of the solar project, which has been executed by the company's recently, formed Solar Business Division.
The project will help saving valuable land resources and conserving water by reducing evaporation, it said.
India can achieve net zero in greenhouse gases emission by 2065-70, says Montek
India can achieve net zero for carbon emissions by 2065-2070 with country’s greenhouse gases peaking by 2035 and country capping coal usage in the next 10 years, said a new study co-authored by former planning commission vice-chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. The study said that the target could be conditional to rich countries doubling climate finance to US $ 200 billion per year in the next few years. The paper strongly advocates that India should commit to its net zero target year, by when
its emissions score becomes nil, at Glasgow climate conference (CoP) starting from October 31, saying that the traditional argument of India will emit for development objective no more holds “diplomatic ground” as there are viable non-emitting energy alternatives available. Net zero is achieved when the amount of greenhouse gases emitted equals the amount of the harmful gases removed from the atmosphere by carbon absorption or sequestration or separation. And, it is the most hotly debated proposal for CoP as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that achieving net zero by 2050 was necessary to keep global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees to pre-industrial level by the end of 2100.
India adds 4,578 MW of solar capacity in second quarter of 2021
India added 2,488 megawatts (MW) of solar in the second quarter (Q2) of the calendar year (CY) 2021, a 19 per cent increase quarter-overquarter, compared to 2,090 MW installed in Q1 2021, according to a recent report.
It added that solar energy’s share of new power capacity additions was the highest ever in the first half of any year. In the first half (H1) of 2021, India added 4,578 MW of solar, a 251 per cent increase compared to the same period previous year. Installations exceeded 3.2 GW of solar installed in all of CY 2020.
According to the report, installations were significantly higher than the previous quarter despite various state level lockdowns because of the second wave of COVID-19.
The report has increased its forecast by 23 per cent in the medium-case scenario to about 8 GW to 9 GW in 2021. It said that by the end of Q2 2021, cumulative solar installations stood at 43.6 GW.
Gujarat High Court issues notice on solar energy subsidy pullback
The Gujarat high court has issued notice to concerned state authorities in response to a petition challenging the government’s decision to withdraw the benefits of subsidy in solar energy policy for micro, small and medium enterprises on the ground that the stoppage of the policy is in violation of the principle of promissory estoppel. The high court was moved by a businessman from Mahisagar district, Ramanlal Patel, who submitted that he had invested in setting up a solar power project following the Gujarat Industrial Policy, 2020. He was attracted to invest in purchase of land, equipment and services to establish the solar project because of the subsidy policy for Development of Small Scale Distributed Solar Project, 2019. His unit was classified as micro enterprise. However, the government took a decision to withdraw the subsidy policy on July 20 and later communications were issued to concerned authorities in August. The petitioner has termed the decision to withdraw subsidy benefits for the MSMEs as illegal and invalid.
Venkaiah Naidu appeals to Indian firms to become self-reliant in solar sector
Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu said the shortage of domestically manufactured solar cells and modules was the biggest hindrance that hampers the nation's growth in the solar sector and urged the Indian companies to reduce the dependence and become self-reliant in the sector.
Inaugurating a 2.4MW solar power plant at Pondicherry University, Naidu suggested ramping up production by easing the setting up of manufacturing plants and publicizing the government's subsidy programmes to encourage small players.
Naidu said the lack of a trained workforce was the other bottleneck in the exponential growth of solar and other renewable energy sources. While pointing out that India is endowed with vast solar energy potential, Naidu said the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) has assessed the country's solar potential to be about 748GW assuming 3% of the wasteland area to be covered by solar photovoltaic modules.
Danish team to call on Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin for setting up windmills at sea
A business delegation from Denmark is calling on chief minister M K Stalin to explore the possibility of establishing offshore wind mills on the Tamil Nadu coast. The state’s long coast, especially between Rameswaram and Kanyakumari, offers a potential to tap 20-30 GW offshore wind energy.
Denmark is also set to establish a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for offshore wind energy in Tamil Nadu. The state has been taking efforts to establish 4-5 CoEs in emerging sectors to enlarge the potential for both manufacturing and services. The CoE for off-shore wind energy is most likely to come up in Chennai.
"Not just an opportunity to generate offshore wind energy, Tamil Nadu offers immense potential for manufacturing components for wind mills, " State Industries minister Thangam Thennarasu said, addressing the Danish delegation at a meeting organized by Guidance Tamil Nadu
Offering Denmark’s support to Tamil Nadu, Danish minister for climate, energy and utilities, Dan Jannik Jorgensen said Denmark has established itself in green energy, especially wind energy. “With the understanding between the two nations (India and Denmark) and with the help of the investments already made by Danish companies here.
India to increase nuclear power capacity three times to cut carbon footprint
With India is exploring multiple options to lower its carbon footprints, the government has recently said the country would produce three times more nuclear power from its current level and called for greater India-US cooperation for clean energy sectors such as biofuels and hydrogen. The issue of ramping up efforts to produce more nuclear power in the next 10 years was discussed in a meeting of junior minister in the PMO and minister of state (atomic energy) Jitendra Singh with the US delegation led by the country’s visiting deputy secretary of energy, David M Turk.
Singh informed the delegation that India will produce more than three times nuclear power and its installed capacity is expected to reach 22,480 MW by 2031 from the current 6,780 MW as more nuclear power plants are also planned in future.
The move will help India substantially increase its share of non-fossil fuel in total energy mix in sync with its pledges under the Paris Agreement. Though India’s share of installed capacity of non-fossil fuel-based electricity generation has already reached nearly 39% of its total power generation capacity against its existing target of 40% by 2030, the step towards nuclear energy would help it upgrade its climate action goal.
