Amid analysis of the G8's latest climate pronouncement, the announcement of India's first national climate action plan received less attention than it otherwise might have. Even in the Indian media, the plan was also overshadowed by the release of a McKinsey & Co. report that projects massive power demand growth in the country -- 100 gigawatts more demand in the next 10 years than previously estimated. Yet the very same day, the government's Investment Commission called the "Ultra-Mega" coal plants that are central to India's strategy to meet that demand a "main reason for persistent capacity shortfalls."
As reported by India's Financial Express, the climate change "National Action Plan" consists of a laundry list of programs to be initiated -- or more likely, repackaged -- on solar power, energy efficiency, agriculture, and a few others. Based on previous performance in the power sector, agriculture seems to be the most promising of those programs (especially considering the Indian government's success in raising productivity during the Green Revolution). One can hope India will have the same success, and be able to utilize the same distribution mechanisms, in efforts to create seed varieties adaptable to drier climatic conditions.
If McKinsey is right, India's demand will soar to 315-335 GW by 2017, from 120 GW installed capacity today. To supply that demand reliably would require over 415 GW of installed capacity -- that's triple what the creaky Indian power sector produces now. And about 10 times what even the dozen planned Ultra-Mega plants could hope to supply.
The report identified 10 more or less monumentally difficult tasks for the Indian government to carry out [PDF], including cutting transmission losses in half, building 30 GW of solar, and training 300,000 workers. But the real challenge in India -- just to meet power demand but especially if it is to be done with low-carbon energy -- is hinted at by the fact that several of the recommendations are purely regulatory in nature. This includes creating a wholesale electricity market and speeding up approval of power plant construction. Yet these may prove the most difficult to enact.
In China, a main task is to redirect massive power sector growth toward cleaner sources. In India, a major challenge is simply getting anything coordinated happening. As if on cue, India's Investment Commission also chided the Indian government for the fact that national electricity reforms initiated in 2003 have only moved forward in five states.
There seems to be one man at the symbolic center of all this: Ratan Tata, who heads the Investment Commission that has called out the government's "obsession" to build Ultra-Mega coal plants. He also chairs the Tata Group, which owns Tata Power, the builder of the Tata Mundra Ultra-Mega plant. In India, you also can drive your Tata Nano, wearing Tata gold jewelry and talking on your Tata Indicom cell phone, to buy Tata iodized table salt. The expansive nature of the Tata Group and other powerful Indian conglomerates shows where the real coordinating and scaling capacity in India lies.
If India's power demand growth is going to be met, it seems that it will only be done if companies like Tata succeed in their efforts to pry open the previously government-controlled power sector. And if low-carbon energy development is to happen, it's hard to have much faith in plans issued by a government that has never failed to fall short of energy goals. Instead, hope that Ratan Tata and Indian energy entrepreneurs of all kinds look a little further past Ultra-Mega plants to the business possibilities of 100 extra gigawatts of solar and other low-carbon energy sources.
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Comments
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vakibs Posted 9:34 pm
16 Jul 2008
where is the land ?
30GW of power from solar ? Hmm. Considering that a reasonable estimate of energy density for solar is 5 W/m^2, we would need (30*10^9)/(5*10^6) = 6000 sq km of land dedicated for power generation.
This is no big amount for a country with 3,287,590 sq km of land. But when you consider that most of this land is already occupied for food production and forestry, you will be hard pressed to find good locations for these solar power plants.
For a tropical country with a very sensitive ecosystem, 6000 sq km is a very tall order.
When you get ambitious and want to produce 100 GW instead of 30 GW, you will need 20,000 sq km of land instead.
Readers are welcome to point out on a map of India where they will keep their choice solar power installations. One good choice is using the Thar desert in the north west, probably for concentrated solar power generation. It has 200,000 sq km of area, and we might cover a portion of this with concentrated solar power installations. Any idea how much this would cost (including the cost of laying down transmission cables to ship this power to cities such as Mumbai and Delhi) ?
Any other alternatives ?
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Nathan Wyeth Posted 5:56 pm
17 Jul 2008
Plenty of sun
Average daily solar radiation in India is about 4-7kwh/m2, not 5w/m2. There's 5,000 trillion kwh annually over India's entire landmass during an average of 300 sunny days per year (http://mnes.nic.in/faq-solarpower-map.htm). That's plenty of sun.
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vakibs Posted 8:01 pm
17 Jul 2008
Hi Nathan
The key economic input to solar energy is not sun but land (and fabrication costs).
Sun costs nothing. But land is very valuable.
Why don't you give the requisite figures based on land occupancy ?
Imagine nuclear energy costs being given in terms of Uranium fuel costs, but the plant construction and decommission being ignored. How would be your outrage ? It is equally outrageous ignoring the demand on land for solar energy production.
There are efficiency losses with each different method when sunshine is converted to electricity. By far, the best method we have is solar PV and its current efficiency is around 20%. New research advances might make it 40% efficient, but these are not available in the market yet.
I borrowed the analysis of energy density from the physicist Prof David Mackay for England.
His reasoning :
The power of raw sunshine at midday during a cloudless day is 1000 W/m^2. It is fair to say it is midday for about 1/4 of the time, and dark the rest 3/4. So we have a daylight factor of 1/4. We also lose power due to cloud cover. We should include a sunniness factor of 1/3. So we get 1/4*1/3*1000 = 80 W/m^2 of solar power hitting south faced roofs. Using 20% efficient solar panels, we have an energy density of about 16 W/m^2.
From the numbers you quoted, average solar irradiance in India is 5.5 KWH/m^2 per day. That is a capacity of 5.5 * 1000/24 = 229 W/m^2.
So India apparently gets 2-3 times the amount of sunshine as England. But I don't know how much of this is true !
With 20% efficient solar PV, we get an energy density of 45 W/m^2
With 10% efficient solar PV, we get an energy density of 23 W/m^2
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snedunuri Posted 10:23 am
09 Aug 2008
Decentralize!
As the article (and previous articles such http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/4/9/162115/5465) argue, because the national transmision system is so rickety and unreliable, many in India have moved to using their own local power sources. The article then goes on to say this is bad thing. In fact its not at all. The problem is what is being used to provide that power - nasty dirty diesel generators in the cities and wood burning in the villages. But in fact if those nasty generators could be replaced with small scale hydro or wind or solar generators, suddenly you've solved two problems at once: the problem of a national government that moves like molasses, and a rickety transmission system as well as loosening the grip on power that comes whenever anything is decentralized. the fact that many Indians are already used to the idea of decentralization anyway should make this a much easier proposition than say here in the US. Why aren't env groups pursuing this option?
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