Decentralised Renewable
Energy
Based Rural Electrification in India
Introduction
Energy is central to social and
economic prosperity of civilisations. Electricity is the defining
innovation in human history replacing muscle power, candles and wick
with power. Still more than 40 % of India’s population does not have an
access to electricity. The current status is largely due to adoption of
centralised energy planning, which ignores energy needs of the rural
areas and poor. Decentralised Energy Planning (DEP) is mechanism for
meeting the rural and small scale energy needs in a reliable and
affordable way.
Renewables have been
consistently contributing to 14% growth in global electricity
generation. They have a substantial potential to provide energy supply
as an alternative to grid e xtension
especially to remote un-electrified rural areas. Decentralised
electricity generation signifies energy generated at or near the point
of use.
Current Scenario
India’s substantial economic
growth has been demanding energy resources enormously but the imbalance
in demand and supply of the energy sources requires serious actions to
augment energy supplies. Renewable energy is deemed as the future of
energy in India and has the world’s largest programme for renewable
energy. In 2010, renewable energy accounted for 17% of total energy
consumption. The share of different renewables in Indian electricity
grid varies with solar at 2.1% and biomass at 4.9 % of the total
renewable energies.
Biomass Energy
Biomass contributes to over a
third of primary energy in India. Energy Alternatives India (EAI)
estimates that the potential in the short term for power from biomass in
India varies from about 18,000 MW, when the scope of biomass is as
traditionally defined, to a high of about 50,000 MW if one were to
expand the scope of definition of biomass. Gasifier technology has
penetrated the applications such as village electrification, captive
power generation and process heat generation in industries producing
biomass waste. Nearly 55 MW of grid connected biomass power capacity is
commissioned and another 90 MW capacity is under construction. Potential
availability of agro residues and wood processing waste in India can
sustain 10,000 MW power.
Solar Energy
Solar photovoltaic for
decentralised power supply are becoming widespread more rapidly in rural
and remote areas. More than nearly 7,00,000 PV systems generating
closely 44 MW power, have been ordained throughout this country. Under
the water pumping programme more than 3000 systems have been instated so
far and great potential for further utilisation of solar lighting and
solar pumping exists.
Current Policy Mechanisms:
Problems and Issues
‘The famous last-mile
connectivity’ issue, while being acknowledged and a ‘Remote Village
Electrification Programme’ through ‘Decentralised Renewable Energy’
finds mention in policy framework. The penetration of Decentralised
Distributed Generation (DDG) has been extremely slow despite a budgetary
allocation of Rs. 540 Cr in the 11th Five Year Plan for capital
subsidies and viability gap funding to attract investments for that
segment of generation.
In the case of such off-grid
models, there are several bottlenecks or roadblocks in the schemes and
polices which act as barriers to its implementation leading to lack of
innovative service delivery models. A vicious circle is thus initiated;
discouraging interest of both private and public entities in renewable
energy based decentralised power projects.
The policy architecture in
India pertaining to rural electrification and renewable energy has not
been able to trigger confidence amongst service providers, technology
suppliers and investors to venture beyond demonstration projects that
have been supported with grant funding and soft lines of venture capital
or credit. The Government of India has made efforts to explore the
potentiality of these models to no avail.
The Ministry of Renewable
Energy (MNRE) under its RVE (Rural Village Electrification) programme
states consumer tariff for DRE projects should be in line with the
existing tariffs in the neighbouring villages and those electrified
through the grid. There is presently no policy or regulatory mechanism
to de-link the projects financial viability with the high consumer
tariffs being levied on the off-grid consumers to ensure adherence to
such guidelines.
The stringent requirements have
acted as a barrier to the uptake of this scheme by potential project
developers such as the tariff of the Energy Service Company (ESCO) that
has to match grid tariff and assets to be returned to the government
after 5 years. Some proposed changes to the DDG scheme include the
possibility of grid integration of such projects with excess electricity
being fed into the grid and electricity being withdrawn from the grid in
time of shortages. With the original provision of a DDG scheme in
villages where grid connectivity is either not feasible or not cost
effective, it was amended that subsidies can be provided for the
electrification of villages that get less than 6 hours of electricity a
day. Keeping these barriers in mind, in 2011 the DDG scheme was modified
around the potential to feed in and draw from the grid but the scheme is
yet to take off.
There is a need for a
multidimensional push: technical, financial, policy and regulatory to
ensure successful grid integration of DRE systems to complement the
conventional grid based electricity supply.
q
Deepa Chaudhary
cdeepa85@yahoo.co.in
References
•
Ramachandra. T. V. and Gautham Krishnadas, 2011. Decentralized renewable
energy options for Himalayan states in India., 7th National Conference
on Indian energy sector "SYNERGY WITH ENERGY", November 18-19, 2011.
AMA, Ahmedabad., pp. 80-86.
•
Decentralized Distributed Generation Scheme: Guidelines (2009)
Government of India
•
Balachandra, P, Darshini Ravindranath, and N. H. Ravindranath.2009.
Energy efficiency in India: assessing the policy regimes and their
impacts. Energy Policy 38 (11)
•
Bhattacharya, S. C and Jana, C. 2009. Renewable energy in India:
historical developments and prospects. Energy Vol. 34 (8)
•
Bhattacharya, Soma and Cropper, Maureen L. 2010. Options for Energy
Efficiency in India and Barriers to Their Adoption. Resources for the
Future, Washington
•
Shukla,
P. R. 2000. Biomass Energy in India: Policies and Prospects. Paper
presented at the workshop on Biomass Energy: Key Issues and Priority
Needs, Organized by International Energy Agency (IEA). Paris
•
EAI
(N.D) India MSW to Energy: Status, Opportunities and Bottlenecks. White
Paper by Energy Alternatives India.
•
The
European Association for the Promotion of Cogeneration, A Guide to
Cogeneration, June 2001 available at
http://www.cogen.org/publications/reports_and_studies.htm
•
Biomass
Sector in India– Problems and Challenges. Achal Gupta | November 17,
2013 - 1:05 pm | Agricultural Residues, Biomass Energy, India
•
P. R.
Shukla. BIOMASS ENERGY IN INDIA: TRANSITION FROM TRADITIONAL TO MODERN
•
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Status in India. Report compiled
by ICLEI South Asia May 2007
•
Tamal
Ghosh, Saswata Nath, Tanmoy Chakraborty, Pranab K Dan. Renewable energy
scenario and disregarded petition of rural populace of an Indian island:
A critical survey and concept of an inexpensive artifact .
•
ABPS
Infrastructure Advisory Pvt Ltd. (Nov, 2011). Policy and Regulatory
Interventions to Support Community Level Off-Grid Projects
•
Gambhir,
A (2012) Presentation on Advantages and Key Issues in the Proposed
Model. Prayas Energy Group
•
Prayas
Energy Group (2012a) Summary Report on Workshop on grid integration of
small scale decentralized renewable energy (DRE) systems. Workshop
organized by Prayas Energy Group, NCPRE and IIT-Bombay
• Ministry
of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India. (Febuary,
2011). Strategic Plan for New and Renewable Energy Sector for the period
2011- 2017
Back to Contents |