State-led Responses to the Indian Energy Challenge: Infrastructure Expenditure, Central Public Sector Enterprises and Electrification (original) (raw)

India’s Pursuit of Energy Security

Defence and Diplomacy Journal Vol. 9 No. 1 2019 (October-December), 2019

Ashok Sharma’s book, India’s Pursuit of Energy Security: Domestic Measures, Foreign Policy and Geopolitics, primarily debates India’s growth story and its future through the lens of energy security. India’s growth story has multiple challenges due to its significant dependence on energy needs: one-fourth of India’s 1.2 billion people still have insufficient access to electricity. This book is not just about heaps of data on India’s economy and its energy requirements but an acute understanding of many dimensions of India’s current growth story and its future stakes.

A Collection of Insights on the Political Economy of Electricity in India’s States

2019

The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) has been one of India's leading public policy think tanks since 1973. The Centre is a non-profit, non-partisan independent institution dedicated to conducting research that contributes to the production of high quality scholarship, better policies, and a more robust public discourse about the structures and processes that shape life in India. CPR Initiative on Climate, Energy, and Environment's (ICEE) main objectives are to understand and interpret the global climate change regime and to stimulate and inform a strategic and sectoral debate around India's energy future focusing on the buildings and electricity sectors. ICEE's aim is also to operationalize, implement, and promote, an integrated approach to climate and development and to analyse key issues of domestic environmental law, governance, and regulation, and in particular, consider institutional capacities for strategic environmental governance. RAP raponline.org The Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) is an independent, non-partisan, non-governmental organization dedicated to accelerating the transition to a clean, reliable, and efficient energy future. Our team focuses on the world's four largest power markets, responsible for half of all power generation: China, Europe, India, and the United States.

Developments in Indian Energy Sector: Problems and Prospects

India is developing at nearly 8% economic growth. Several development initiatives have been taken by the Government of India (GOI) to sustain this economic growth. Continued development requires strong energy infrastructure to support this economic transformation in order to remain competitive. To meet the increasing energy demand, many projects have been planned and offered but could not be successfully implemented either on account of deficient legislative and regulatory structure or lack of coordination among execution agencies. It is observed that legislative and institutional frameworks are required to be in sync to facilitate the development process. This paper reviews the major problems faced by Indian energy sector, presents an analytical view of the future prospects and suggests possible measures that can help in improving the situation.

India's energy security: A sample of business, government, civil society, and university perspectives

This article explores the concept of energy security perceived and understood by a sample of government, business, civil society, and university stakeholders in India. Based on a literature review, the authors hypothesize what energy experts suggest energy security is for India. The article then tests these hypotheses through the use of a survey completed by 172 Indian respondents. The article begins by describing its methodology before summarizing the results of the literature review to distill seven working hypotheses related to energy security in India. These hypotheses relate to (1) security of energy supply, (2) equitable access to energy services, (3) research and development of new energy technologies, (4) energy efficiency and conservation, (5) self-sufficiency and trade in energy fuels, (6) nuclear power, and (7) the energy-water nexus. It then tests these hypotheses with our survey instrument before concluding with implications for energy policy in India and beyond.

India's Energy Security: Critical Considerations

This article examines the evolution of the concept of energy security and its proper meaning with regard to India's energy sector. In the context of energy security, it aims to understand the impact of rising gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and change in oil prices on energy use; patterns in production , consumption and import of major sources of energy, such as crude oil, natural gas and coal in India; and the current structure of India's energy sector and the impact of regulatory policies thereon. The evidence shows that GDP per capita and energy use per capita have a bidirectional causal relationship and these two also cointegrate. There also exists a unidirectional causal relationship from oil prices to energy use. No causal relationship is observed between oil prices and GDP per capita. For all the sources of energy, the indigenous production capacity is unable to match the consumption requirement , and hence there is an increased dependence on the import of these sources. A major impediment in the achievement of energy security by India is the current regulatory and policy environment that fails to make the sector more attractive for private sector participation and investment.

Power-Hungry: The State and the Troubled Transition in Indian Electricity

Indian Capitalism in Development, ed. Barbara Harriss-White and Judith Heyer, 2014

India’s pre-liberalization power policy was characterized by vast subsidies for irrigated agriculture, widespread theft, scarcity, and underinvestment. With regional variations, this description also fits the contemporary power sector. Electricity is critical for capital accumulation – making its comparative neglect in the study of development all the more egregious – and we would intuitively expect India’s contemporary pro-business state to alter policy to benefit ‘India Inc’. The power sector was indeed one of the first selected for reform in 1991, yet the pro-business policy transition has substantially failed. What can this failure tell us about the contemporary Indian state and its relationship with capitalist development?

ENERGY USES IN INDIA: A CASE OF ELECTRICITY

The global economy is set to grow four-fold between now and 2050 and growth could approach ten-fold in developing countries such as India and China. This promises economic benefits and huge improvements in people’s standard of living, but it implies a much greater use of energy. Indian electricity supply and demand is projected to increase four to five-fold between now and 2050 (IEA-2008). This development requires massive investments, but it also creates unique opportunities to dramatically change the CO2 intensity of Indian electricity supply. However, the expansion of the power sector in India faces many barriers such as a spatially uneven distribution of natural resources, financial constraints and high system losses. Accelerated development of natural resources and more transmission and distribution (T&D) capacity are needed in order to overcome the current problems. Increased competition, additional equipment supply capacity and other actions to increase the private sector interest can help to accelerate investments (Dolf Gielen et al, 2009). Hence, Government of India is giving the highest priority to the development of power sector. Initiatives are being taken to bring about comprehensive reforms in the power sector to facilitate and attract investments and bring about improvements in the efficiency of delivery systems. Energy demand, in particular electricity production has resulted in creation of fossil fuel based power plants that let out substantial green house gas, carbon emission into the atmosphere causing climate change and global warming. Further, shortages and constraints in availability of fossil fuels, also necessitates concentrating on the renewable energy in order to bring down the gap between demand and supply. The energy sector is merging as a vital sector in the Indian economy and in the next few years is likely to see a significant growth in power generation capacity in the country. This is likely to happen through a combination of Public Private Partnerships, private sector investments as well as through Government investment in the Public Sector. The growth would be across a wide spectrum of technologies, with significant capacity addition expected in both hydro as well as coal based thermal sectors. With the civil nuclear co-operation deal a reality, there would be capacity additions in the nuclear energy sector. New initiatives on gas based power plants are expected. Most importantly, new and renewable energy, including wind power, bio-mass and solar power would play an important part. As a result, the power scenario in different states is likely to change significantly. This study attempts to look at the power crisis situation in southern region states in India, and demand supply gap to look at alternative opportunities, policies and strategies.

Indian Approaches to Energy Access

Almost 77 million households in India were living without electricity in 2011 and more than 836 million people do not have access to modern cooking fuels. Such a situation continues to exist despite several initiatives and policies to support rural energy efforts by the government. This paper examines the trends of rural energy programs in India and attempts to capture comprehensively the developments in rural electrification and access to modern cooking energies. The paper highlights specific challenges on technical, financial, regulatory and institutional aspects that are hindering rural energy access in India and lists out the key lessons from the energy access initiatives in India. It finds that successful outcomes require, among others, an ecosystem of innovation beyond “physical access”, synchronization of energy provision and development, and a structured model for rural energy delivery