- India is committed to fighting climate change, and working gradually to shift thermal power generation from coal to renewable energy
- Reduction of cost in solar power generation will increase the pace of the transition
- Government of India under AtmanirbharBharat Abhiyan to strengthen local manufacturing of Solar Products
The Indian Power Sector is going through a period of transformation with plans for Renewable Energy to be integrated at a large scale over the next decade. Increasing thrust being felt for flexible operation of existing generating stations. Indian Government with a view to improving the environment, and to reduce the Green House gases has assured the International Community to increase the share of Renewable Energy in the Indian Power Sector with Optimistic Targets of 175 GW by 2021-2022 and 450 GW by 2031-2032.
Solar Energy Society of India (SESI), the apex body for the Solar industry in India organized a webinar on “Coal to Renewable Energy”, on 19th November 2020, in which top experts from the Power sector participated and presented some of the critical challenges faced by the industry and the way forward. The webinar is part of the series organised by SESI on the transition of the Indian power sector towards Renewable Energy. The webinar is available online at SESI Youtube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3sOZ0T1oY
Dr. H L Bajaj, former Tech Member APTEL, former Chairman of CEA, Director of NTPC & BHEL delivered the keynote address and led the panel. The webinar was attended by V S Verma, former Member CERC, Member (Planning) CEA, DG, BEE, Prafulla Pathak, President, SESI, Neerja Mathur, former member JERC and former Chairman CEA, R C Nakul, former Chief Engineer CEA, and Director of Astone Engineering, Ajayprakash Shrivastava, President of Maharishi Solars, S C Shrivastava, former Chief Engineer, CERC, Inder Singh, CEO of S&S Water and Power Projects, and Shailendra Shukla, former chairman of Haryana and Chattisgarh State Power Corporations addressed the participants.
“Over years the cost of solar power generation reduced drastically, and today is economical compared to other power generation including coal”, said Prafulla Pathak, President of SESI in his welcome address. Coal base power plant unit are stable power supply and are used as baseload over years. “In the changing scenario, these coal units may have to play a reverse role. The flexibility in operation to compensate relatively unstable yet must run status to renewable”, added Mr. Pathak. “Transition of the power towards the renewable energy, reducing the carbon footprint is the biggest challenge the entire world is facing”, commented V S Verma, discussing the issues relating to the transition of the power sector toward the renewable sources of power generation.
India is taking concrete steps towards the transformation of power generation with a four-point agenda, with existing power plants generating 30 MW to 200 MW power getting retired from the operation on a systematic matter, and renovation of power plants increasing their efficiency. The future power plants will be of supercritical units with higher efficiency and increasing the share of renewable energy in the power generation. With Prime Minister Modi leading the change, Indian renewable energy is working to feather out the challenges, reach the target set, 1 Lakh MW power generation by 2030.
“As per the latest IEA report India is to lead the global renewable energy power generation, doubling up its capacity. The government of India is committed to reducing its greenhouse gases, and is supported by various agencies like Green Climate Fund towards this movement”, said Dr. H L Bajaj, the chief guest leading the panel discussion in his keynote address. Every Power System needs a balancing power as well as certain ramping up/ ramping down capacity in the system. However, their requirement increases substantially in case the weather dependant variable generations are inducted into the system.
Followed by Dr. Bajaj, R C Nakul, who is also the Governing Council Member of SESI spoke about a clean passage to clean energy. Generation from coal-based thermal units is around 73 % of total energy and is almost constant for the last 3-4 years. The annual coal consumption is around 630-650 million tonnes, and the Carbon dioxide emission is 850-875 million tonnes/ year. Its important renewable energy capacity is increased and also the generation from renewable sources is higher.
Former Chief of Engineering at CERC S C Shrivastava spoke about the regulatory perspective of the transition of the power sector towards renewable energy. Inder Singh presented his views on the micro-scale solar business role in the transition of the Indian power sector towards renewable energy, where he pointed out the challenges and difficulties SMEs are facing in India like policy decisions, indigenous manufacturing, etc.
Neerja Mathur spoke about the central, state government, as well as DISCOM notifications, as well as the implementation issues. “The need of the hour is to gradually shift from coal-based power generation to renewable energy”, said Ms. Mathur. She also spoke about the Gross Metering and Net Metering, the inability of DISCOM’s to improve the distribution capacity. “In the era of Climate Change and Sustainable Renewable Energy generation, reduction of cost of solar energy production is key to the transformation of coal to renewable energy”, commented Shailendra Shukla.
Past President of SESI, Ajayprakash Shrivastava given the industry perspective of Indian renewable energy, manufacturing as well as installation, commissioning, and servicing. He informed its important Government should bring policies to reduce the dependency on other countries importing solar products, and improve the local manufacturing.
The webinar discussed the correct analysis of costs etc viz taking into account the cess, taxes, duties, subsidies, efficiency factors, Net metering, must-run status, indigenous manufacturing facilities, Import of materials, balancing of power, grid operation, storage of Power, variabilities of generation, financing issues, socializing of transmission charges would need to be taken care of in a transparent manner.
The webinar is available over Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3sOZ0T1oY. For more details, visit www.sesi.in