Indian Member Committee

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The India Member Committee of the World Energy Council aims to be the foremost energy think-tank of the country and the voice of the sector. The organisation is truly representative of the Indian energy sector and contributes to advancing the energy goals of India. Its mission is to facilitate review, research and advocacy of energy technology, policy and strategy; to provide a platform for dialogue within the Indian energy sector; and to collaborate with member committees worldwide towards long term sustainable supply and use of energy. The India Member Committee brings together high-level players in the energy sector together to forge a better understanding of energy issues towards identifying and implementing sustainable, effective solutions.

Mr Gurdeep Singh, is Chairman & Managing Director of NTPC Limited, the largest power generating company in India. Mr Singh has nearly three decades of rich and varied experience in the sector. He started his professional journey with NTPC and his career spans both Indian and Multi-national Companies such as PowerGen, CLP, IDFC, CESC and AES, Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Limited (GSECL). During his tenure as Managing Director, GSECL, he conceptualized and implemented world's first canal top solar power plant. A mechanical engineer from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India, he has obtained leadership training from IIM Ahmedabad and global institutions like Saïd Business School-Oxford, Darden School of Management-Virginia, USA, Singapore Civil Services College-Singapore.

Energy in India

india, critical uncertainties, action priorities

Issues which country respondents have chosen to prioritise during 2022 show that Renewable energy are an integral part of India’s energy transition. Energy efficiency and Digitalisation are some other areas which are considered impactful for the country.

Actionable areas

Since last three years, the amount of renewable energy installations in India have exceeded conventional energy installations. India is the only G20 nation in 2020 who is on track to reach its NDC targets as per the 2015 Paris convention (Climate transparency report, p23). India is centre of one of the largest renewable energy expansion programmes in the world. India is currently making tremendous progress in adopting renewable energy. Since 2010, installed renewable capacity has increased from 16.8 GW to 151 GW (incl. hydro) in December 2021. India has set an ambitious target to achieve 175 GW renewable energy capacity by 2022 and aspires to achieve 500 GW by 2030.
India also has coal capacity of over 200 GW to power its national grid which has a peak load of over 200 GW. Energy efficiency will play a major part in reducing the greenhouse emissions from thermal power plants. With India having vast amount of electricity provided by coal, improvement of energy efficiency will also help in the Energy security and Energy Equity aspects of the World Energy Trilemma Index. Special focus is being laid on energy efficiency with savings of 388 BU by 2030 among different sectors using different schemes by Bureau of Energy Efficiency. Digitalisation is another high-impact priority which is required for maintaining stability of the grid with integration of unreliable renewable energy (more than 40%).
India is focusing on transition towards a more sustainable future by revamping policies in different sectors. The “Digital India” initiative was launched by government in 2015 to transform the country. Digital India will also be helping towards the digitalization of national grid making it smart grid (smart grid mission) as well as forecasting of renewable generation.

Key Uncertainties:

During the COVID 19 induced countrywide lockdown, electricity consumption from March 2020 plummeted by almost 20-25% YoY, but recovered within 6 months. To support the energy sector, the Indian government introduced relief packages to stakeholders in the Energy Sector. During the pandemic, uncertainty in Commodity prices emerged as a major focus. One of the key reasons being the impact of the pandemic across the world, which in turn affected supply chains for different commodities including solar panels, gas, petroleum, etc. for which country is import dependent.
To reduce dependence on imported fuel India has announced launch of National Hydrogen Mission in financial year 2022. India is also planning to mandate consumption of green hydrogen in fertiliser, petroleum refining and hard to abate sectors such as steel & cement. Indian Government has launched its ambitious scheme of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (Self-reliant Bharat) under which, focus will be on manufacturing in India and making India self-reliant. This also addresses uncertainty related to climate change.

In the 2022 Budget announcement by PM Gati Shakti – National Master Plan for Multi-modal Connectivity, launched a digital platform to bring 16 Ministries including Railways and Roadways together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects. This will further speedup the process of integrated Energy transition towards a more sustainable future.

Acknowledgements

India Member Committee

Soumya Prakash Nayak

Nishant Kumar Sharma