Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 2020 NISPAcee On-line Conference for PhD students Program Overview The 2020 NISPAcee On-line Conference for PhD students Author(s) Sovik Mukherjee St. Xavier's University Kolkata India Title Electrical energy scenario in India : Looking into the sustainability of use of new renewables File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Sovik Mukherjee Abstract In this fast growing world where 82 per cent of energy supply in the world’s twenty biggest economies still comes from fossil fuels it is difficult to be in line with the emission targets of the Paris Accord. India’s emission targets, by far, are the most ambitious and close to the 1.5°C limit agreed. Having said that, the question that arises is — is it enough? Continuously for three years, investments in renewable energy have pinnacled past fossil fuel related power investments. But at the same time, India’s ongoing expansion of coal is a worrisome factor. The Paris agreement of 1.5°C limit means that there needs to be a phase-out of coal in the power sector by 2040 at least, if not earlier. Surprisingly, 90 GW of planned coal-fired capacity under the National Electricity Plan (NEP) in 2018 will lead to an increase in emissions unnecessarily. But, India at this point of time can not even stop the use of coal immediately. Here lies the jinx. There has to be a tradeoff between India committing on its long run goals of greenhouse gas emissions in such a way that it does not raise the short run cost to the development process in India in terms of not being able to fund the huge costs of using new renewables. In this background, the paper discusses how the optimum fuel mix design should look like involving the use of using new renewables. We want to make it however, clear here that these projections are not predictions of India’s future energy scenario, but represent certain alternative energy scenarios which may be considered attainable for India not only from the feasibility part but also from the financing part. We project the share of non-fossil power generation capacity to reach 5% in 2031 of the total capacity, corresponding to a 12% share of electricity generation. Though these results broadly support the targets of the present Government regarding the creation of generation capacity of new renewables based power, the paper argues that the rent domestically extracted through either coal or gas in not enough to finance these capacity requirements from use of solar or wind or other renewables in line with the carbon emissions intensity of GDP target of 33-35% in 2030.
