Opening and Welcome Remarks

Mr. Pankaj Madan, Deputy Head, India Office, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung

Mr. Madan welcomed all speakers and participantsto the first set of diginars in the TERIKAS Energy Dialogue series. Talking about the TERI KAS cooperation, he highlighted that after the 9/11 attacks in New York Trade Towers, KAS was assigned some special funds by the headquarter to deal with security issues and during that time environment security was brought ahead as a topic and ahead of its time into the strategic arena. That’s when KAS and TERI joined hands. We started with the environment security aspect and quickly sailed into energy dialogue. There were five energy dialogue that were conducted by us. Those dialogues received significant interest as they were addressing a critical issue. The current dialogues are examining contemporary issues in energy security and have resumed very renewed importance. The importance have increased and the need for action in this has also increased.

Mr. RR Rashmi, Programme Director and Distinguished Fellow, Integrated Policy Analysis Division, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

Energy security the way it has been looked at, it has been a traditional security concern. Climate and energy security both are equally important in a modern world in which we live today especially when we merge or marry these dominant concern of our time, it is critical to analyse how they play out in terms of developmental challenges and meeting the environmental goals. The question is 2040 and beyond, in this time frame how does the energy scenario play out is essential. Is it going to be consistent with our environmental goals or it is going to be different particularly in the growing country like India? Now we have at least a 2030 time frame available with us laid down by the policy makers in our country.

We have NDC which says that by 2030 we do at least three things. We will ensure that 40% of our energy generation capacity comes from Renewables, we have also talked about forest carbon stock and the emission intensity of our GDP. Leaving aside the emission intensity of GDP and forest carbon stock, the question which will have immediate impact on our energy security is that of the renewables as a proportion of total energy generation capacity and demand. We have made substantial progress in this field no doubt in the last ten years. We have been able to bring down the cost of generation of variable renewable energy but that is the first order of economic challenge. There is the second order of economic challenge as well. We have to ensure that the upfront investment keep continuous in the same rate as it has happened in the past and the investment which had already taken place in the existing technology like that of coal or oil and gas, those investment do not go completely waste. There are serious economic issues stranded asset in these sectors. So while we have an optimism in the renewable energy sector, in fact one of the TERI study does show that we can even go up to 47% in high reliability scenario in terms of integration of renewable energy into the overall energy system compare to 40% which government has committed.

But despite this optimism there are issues with the stranded assets so we have to make sure that the future investments do not get locked up and what are the policy changes which will ensure that it happens. The kind of signals that we are getting are, some people might get concern, for example you must have seen that the government has come up with the target of raising its coal production up to 1 billion tonnes by end of 2020 whereas the coal production was around 550 million tonnes 2015-2016. There is clearly a goal of doubling the coal production there also, while old coal plants are been shut down and new and more stringent thermal emission norms are in place there is clearly a need for balancing the grid. For balancing the gird you need to have stable grid system which depends on hydro power perhaps also coal power, so there are challenges here.

At the same time you have bigger challenge in supplying energy to the transport sector. In fact there are three challenges one is that of supplying energy to the transport sector, supplying energy to the industry sector where you cannot replace coal for example in steel or in cement or in metal industry and thirdly you have the challenge of ensuring universal access of energy to everyone. That will again depend in large measure on supplying LPG, oil or depending on electricity which comes from coal or some sources until you are able to establish dependable system or integrate the renewable to the larger extent.

So there are different kinds of challenges. Despite these challenges the future doesn’t look as worrisome as it was five years ago. I think the future is bright because of the kind of energy transition that we have made in the past and if we are able to ensure the required policy prescriptions, I think the momentum which we have picked up in terms of greater integration of renewable energy into the grid will keep going and it will ensure that we are able to meet not only our climate change goals but also the goals of universal access.

The things which will be required for this are – 1. We ensure that the policy of just transition are in place and we invest new technology like hydrogen, in fact TERI study do show that by 2040 the hydrogen costs may sufficiently come down to be integrated to the energy system, not only into the industry but also to the transport sector, long distance trucking as well as other areas where it can supplement the renewable energy. So both kinds of actions will be required and the future is certainly brighter one ever. On this optimistic note I conclude and hand over to Swati.

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