Budget 2022-23:Energizing India’s Energy Sector

While it did enjoy some saubhagya, India’s power sector did not udayas much as it could (pun fully intended). The dilemma between energy security (read: dependence on indigenous coal) and clean energy (read: shift to renewables) continues to swing the proverbial pendulum between net zero commitment of COP26 and the harsh geo-economic realities. Here are five tips to refresh the thinking in the corridors of “power”:

1. Structural alignment across “Energy” sector: The current Govt. had started well with consolidating power, renewables and coal under one minister. Instead of separating them back, the right direction should have been to put petroleum and natural gas also in that bouquet and appoint one Energy Minister to handle all four portfolios. Future roadmap should include actually merging the ministries rather than just appointing a common minister.
 
2. Coal gasification for power generation and methanol production: Since it would involve coal, power and petroleum ministries to work together, “Methanol Economy” could not really scale up despite NITI Aayog’s best efforts. A single minister across all these ministries can hopefully scale up Methanol Economy beyond sporadic pilots. This one initiative can single-handedly solve multiple conflicting problems – revive coal sector, minimize air pollution (PM, not GHG), substitute part of imported crude with indigenous coal, minimize diversion of edible crops to ethanol production and thereby conserve ground water, to name a few. International collaboration for technology adoption is the way to go.
 
3. Revamp Power Distribution Sector, Yet Again: The key lies in execution. While various Distribution reform schemes have been well conceived by the Centre, they have been executed poorly by most States. And the panacea that is being touted around for this paradox is privatization. Surely, privatization of State DISCOMs is a necessary step, but it is not sufficient – partly due to sheer scale (100+ DISCOMs) and partly because most private licensees are interested in urban areas only (like Chandigarh), which leaves out 70-80% of India. So the alternative “panacea” here is to train, motivate and empower the DISCOMs’ employees to enable them to turn around their own operations. KESCO (Kanpur DISCOM) proved that in the past. Currently, a pilot on Employee-Ownership based Distribution Reform model is being conducted in certain rural areas of Bharatpur district. We need more such organic reforms that endeavour to revamp distribution sector from inside-out, rather than outside-in.
 
4. Charge up the charging infrastructure:  The irony about Electric Vehicle (EV) is that the “vehicle” itself has made the most progress, and is now least of the bottlenecks. The bottleneck in scaling up EV in India is the surrounding ecosystem or lack thereof, especially chargers, charging technology, communication protocols and charging infrastructure. What should have become an omnipresent phenomenon by now – like petrol or diesel outlets – is still grappling under the paper-work of policy-making. High time Govt. announces a mega-plan for implementing “million charging stations” as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
 
5. The fifth element is missing:  We have harnessed electricity from Agni (thermal), Jal (hydel), Vayu (wind) and Akash (solar), but not tried much with Prithvi (geothermal).  With no problem of intermittency and no dependence on energy storage, geothermal power generation can provide an indigenous, omnipresent, decentralized source of renewable energy. Like coal gasification, geothermal energy is also an area ripe for international collaboration for technology adoption. 

- Shalabh Srivastava, Country Director - Research Triangle Institute (RTI International), India