Energetica India 89 - May 2020

RENEWABLE ENERGY energetica INDIA- May_2020 55 nology and infrastructure have become much more available and economical making the transition to 100% renewable energy attainable. Moreover, our country has a huge potential to transition com- pletely.” When asked about levers to push great- er growth for renewable energy, he said: “While the transition to renewable ener- gy is progressing rapidly at the national level, with our power grids carrying more and more renewable electricity than ever, we are still far from turning the grid to predominantly renewable. Meanwhile, there are many entities, like us, that would like to transition to 100 percent renewable energy and quickly. Aligning policies across the states to facilitate this would make a huge difference in attain- ing our ambitions at an entity level, as well as, nationally. The ideal scenario is one where you can get certified renewable energy delivered by the Electricity Supply Companies at the prevailing power cost. This will avoid a lot of procedural complexities and, more importantly, keep the cash flow of the ESCOM intact. Today, this is looking increasingly feasible with the significant drop in renewable energy generation costs. The next best solution would be to have alternate mechanisms to pro- cure renewable energy through power exchanges, or other third parties, with the landed cost not exceeding the pre- vailing grid-power cost. Additionally, the captive option should be made viable in all states.” Decathlon, another RE100 member, is determined to drastically reduce their carbon emission across their operations. They have committed to a group-wide target to reduce per product emissions by 40% between 2016 to 2026 for all ac- tivities including scopes 1, 2 and 3. Deepan Prakash, theSustainability and Innovation Leader at Decathlonre-em- phasised their commitment to support- ing reduced carbon emissions: “India is a developing economy and has an increasing energy demand to fulfil the economic development plans that are being implemented. Close to 77% of our energy demand is supplied by fossil fu- els so there is an urgent need to find al - ternate sources for generating electricity to achieve sustainable growth and avoid catastrophic climate change. Decathlon has identified reducing greenhouse gas emissions as one of our priority challenges in 2013. In 2017 we increased our oversight of emis- sions-measuring efforts and in 2018 we expanded these to our product suppli- ers.” On understanding hurdles for complete renewable energy adoption, especially in the current climate,he said: “The prime hurdle for achieving RE100 in India through direct routes is volatile policy and regulatory framework. The uncertainty in net-metering and open ac- cess renewable energy policies are not giving us a confidence to take firm deci - sions in achieving RE100 goals through direct renewable energy procurement. With advancements in technology and the energy storage industry, achiev- ing 100 percent is technically feasible even without any support from grid, but high costs continue to pose a problem for complete adoption. This will instead push companies to procure renewable energy attributes (through an indirect method), possibly adding a financial burden especially during crisis situa- tions like what’s happening all over the world right now. To expand renewable energy in healthy way, industrial and commercial con- sumers should be enabled to procure up 100% renewable energy from the grid (wheeling, banking, and net-me- tering).Restrictions by a few states al- lowing net-metering for LT consumers only should be relaxed, open access for commercial and industrial LT consumers should be allowed, and inter-state re- newable energy wheeling be made more lenient.” RE100 companies are demonstrating their climate commitment and leader- ship by influencing others as well. Apple Inc. launched the Supplier Clean Energy Program to advance the use of clean en- ergy in their supply chain encouraging them to source more than 4 gigawatts (GW) of new clean energy by 2020. Ap- ple supports supplier transitions to clean energy via working with them to advo- cate for policy change in key markets, connecting suppliers with high-quality clean energy projects and developers. Looking ahead While greater alignment between central and state policies on corporate renew- able energy sourcing and its enforce- ment is required, business have also started demanding for the regulatory frameworks to open up to alternative instruments such as green tariffs, virtu- al PPAs, special trading of renewable electricity on energy exchange, and oth- ers. Companies leading our transition towards 100% renewable energy must be rewarded (possibly through special policy incentives), helping them gen- erate higher demand, influencing their peers and supporting India’s goals of a 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022. The impact of COVID-19 is a stark re- minder of the fragility of our global sys- tems. Within a matter of weeks, we have seen our economic systems take a beat- ing, leaving us with uncertain outcomes. The impact on public health, people in their masses moving from urban to rural areas for shelter and sustaining liveli- hoods all pose challenges for the Indian government. Amid these major shifts, comes an opportunity for us to continue to work towards designing resilient sys- tems that can help us overcome chal- lenges of humanity and the planet. It is not the time to be side-tracked by inexpensive oil and gas because it is a temporary phenomenon while the long- term business case for renewable en- ergy will persist with greater technolo- gy improvements in solar and storage, dropping prices, and with higher regu- latory costs of fossil-fuel based energy. The country’s efforts to transition to a re- newable energy technology, reshaping investments, generating new jobs and creating wealth in the sector can help create possibilities for healthy, resilient and thriving future economies. However, to secure a leadership position, it must accelerate the transition to clean power with levers such as knowledge, technol- ogy, partnerships and policy.