Commission reviews all the eight missions under the NAPCC...

 

A committee set up under the principal secretary to the prime minister is trying to streamline all the eight missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).

The eight missions under the NAPCC include the national solar mission, the national mission for enhanced energy efficiency, national mission on sustainable habitat, national water mission, national mission for sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem, national mission for a green India, national mission for sustainable agriculture, and national mission on strategic knowledge for climate change.

The committee headed by Pulok Chatterjee, principal secretary to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will meet in January, said a senior environment ministry official. The panel’s terms of reference include reviewing the missions and trying to work out a synergy between them.

Ministries dealing with the environment, water resources, urban development, agriculture, power, and new and renewable energy are the nodal agencies for the missions.

“We will be monitoring the progress of all the missions on a quarterly basis and bring out all the key action points for all of them,” said the official quoted above on condition of anonymity.
The NAPCC, prepared in 2008, was intended to serve as a road map on how India plans to combat climate change, uniting it with the country’s development concerns and the need to sustain economic growth.

Because multiple ministries and agencies are involved in the planning and implementation of these missions, it is important for them to have a common format on the basis of which the progress of the missions can be reported and reviewed, said the official cited above.

“The members of the committee include the secretaries of all these ministries in addition to representatives from the Planning Commission and the finance ministry,” the official said.

The official said that it was important for all the missions to have short-term goals on a quarterly basis. “They have to list their top priorities. We have told them to achieve the maximum of their goals in the next 2-3 years. There will be a final review in 2017 for all of them,” the official said.

The committee has advised all the ministries to synergize the missions with the existing schemes. “We have told green India mission to sync with Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA),” the official cited above said.

Under the sustainable habitat mission, the urban development ministry has plans to construct metro trains in some cities. “They are also improving solid waste management and have issued advisories on energy efficient buildings,” the official said.

Bureau of energy efficiency (BEE) under the power ministry is the nodal agency for implementing the national mission on energy efficiency. Ajay Mathur, director general, BEE, said that the key is to see what the impact of these missions is.

“Our quantitative reporting will start only September next year as that is when our schemes will start playing out. For this quarterly review, we will only be saying whether our schemes are on track or not,” said Mathur.

Prodipto Ghosh, a member of the Prime Minister’s council on climate change, said the review showed the government’s seriousness in implementing the NAPCC.

“The review will then be presented to the Prime Minister’s council on climate change which is headed by the Prime Minister and he can take stock of it,” said Ghosh.

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Realities of renewable energy in India...

 

Recently the Union ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) asked the ministry of power (MoP) to make the Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) compliance mandatory for states if they want to avail funds for financial restructuring of their utilities.

RPOs, put simply, are the minimum percentages of the total power that electricity distribution companies and some large power consumers need to purchase from renewable energy (RE) sources. RPO creates a minimum market for renewables in the absence of pricing externalities of conventional power generation.

While the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) has set an ambitious RPO target of 15% by 2020, it is the state electricity regulatory commissions (SERC) that set year-wise targets in their respective states. While 28 out of 29 states have such targets in place for solar and non-solar sources separately, there is an increasing concern over actual compliance. Data for a few major states for the last two-three years reveals that barring utilities in states such as Karnataka, most others have failed to meet their RPO targets.

Reduction of RPO targets to accommodate the concerns of utilities has been a common measure taken by SERCs. After achieving an RPO compliance of 5.78% in Rajasthan in 2011-12, the Rajasthan ERC reduced its earlier RPO target from 8.5% to 6%. Similarly Tamil Nadu ERC reduced its RPO target from 14% to 9% despite the state utility achieving a compliance of 9.59%. Gujarat ERC allowed its distribution licensees to carry forward the shortfall for FY 2011-12 to be met in FY 2012-13. Considering the excess solar generation in Gujarat in 2012-13 (over its mandated RPO), it allowed the state utility to count this towards compliance of the non-solar RPO to remove the burden on the distribution licensee.

For FY 2010-11 and 2011-12, Maharashtra appeared to have achieved its RPO targets of 6% and 7%, respectively. However, the RPO compliance data collated by the designated state nodal agency, Maharashtra Energy Development Agency, seems to have included renewable energy units wheeled under the network under open access (OA) and credited them to the utility’s account. For 2011-12, if one does not consider units wheeled under OA, then the RPO compliance drops sharply to 4.49%. While the regulator did seek the explanation for this counting of wheeled RE towards RPO compliance from Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd, it did not take any further action in this matter. This issue is bound to come back when the OA consumers’ RPO compliance will be taken up.

Fortunately, there are encouraging signs with some state ERCs (Maharashtra, MP, UTs, Uttarakhand, Punjab, etc.) beginning to flex their muscles against RPO defaulters. For example, besides setting a deadline to cumulatively fulfil RPOs, Maharashtra ERC has explicitly directed that any future non-compliance would result in the ERC invoking the penal clause from their regulations. However, there are many other steps which state ERCs can proactively take to facilitate this process. An effective web-based automated monitoring and verification system for RE generation/procurement is essential to operationalize compliance reporting. While most state ERCs’ RPO regulations indicate quarterly compliance reporting, this is hardly followed up.

While India’s progress in the renewable energy sector has been impressive in the last few years and needs to be sustained in the years to come, effective implementation of the RPO framework is crucial to meet these goals.

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TERI speaks about the need of long-term policies in the renewable energy sector...

 

Shirish Garud, Senior Fellow, Energy Environment Technology Applications, TERI, speaks about the work his organization is doing in the renewable energy space and what currently ails India's power sector

Q: TERI  has been working in the renewable energy and solar thermal power plants sector for a while now. Tell us a bit about how your projects in this space will benefit people and is the common man actually aware of the benefits of alternative energy?

A: TERI is working in renewable energy sector for couple of decades now. Further, it has established village level solar minigrids and biomass gasifier and solar PV technology based power plants in villages. These projects not only provide basic lighting but also power internet enabled computers and printers used for knowledge gain, provide power for  running small business or income generation activities such as bamboo splitting, turmeric grinding and so on. These projects provide the beneficiaries with the opportunities for economic activities and avenues for income generation. Our experience is that the common man is getting aware of the benefits of these activities and renewable energy power plants.

Q: With pressure on coal and natural gas increasing, will renewable's be able to meet India's energy needs?

A: Our demand for energy, both for power generation and for other applications such as industrial processes, heating and cooling, agriculture etc., is very high compared to the potential of renewable energy resources except solar energy, which has huge potential provided we can have access to the land for solar installations. However, in practice, the renewable energy applications will be limited and currently I don't foresee renewables will be able to meet India's all energy needs. However, in future we have potential to achieve about 15-30 % of India's energy needs in power sector through renewables.     

Q:What according to you is the single biggest factor ailing India's power sector today? A: I think inefficient distribution network, infrastructure and uneconomical and inefficient operations of the distribution companies are the biggest factors ailing India's power sector. Q: Most of our power is thermally generated. Why do we still lag when it comes to harnessing renewable energy sources?

A: We need huge investments in renewable sector and more progressive policies for integration with conventional grid network for renewable sector to grow rapidly. The policy environment is reasonably positive, however, long term policies are needed which can help to take it forward. 

Q: What are the challenges the renewable energy sector in India faces?

A: Renewable energy sector is rapidly evolving and major challenges faced by the sector can be summarized as under

• Lack of stable long term policies for promotion.
• Difficulties in getting latest technologies and efficient process knowhow
• Inadequate support for research and development and commercialization of home grown technologies
• Resistance from conventional power sector players to adopt and integrate the renewables.
• For higher percentage of RE integration we need to have latest technologies in energy storage and control to improve dispatchability of the renewable power plants. I think this area will be of great interest in coming years.
• Hurdles in land acquisition and spiraling land costs

Having said this, I must mention that in recent years both the central and state governments have been promoting large scale integration of renewables especially for power generation and National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC) and National Solar Mission, one of the eight missions identified under NAPCC, along with Electricity Act 2003 are major drivers for renewable power sector. Progressive regulatory measures such as Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPO), Renewable Energy certificate (REC) scheme, tax incentives, preferential tariffs are also providing required impetus to the sector.

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