Smoke Signals From The Renewable Energy Sphere

Context: 

Recently, the Prime Minister launched the Indian Oil Corporation’s patented solar cook­stove at the India Energy Week 2023. In this context, the article goes through the government’s earlier attempts to transform household energy consumption.

About the Solar Cook­stove:

• The PM claimed the stove would soon reach three crore households within the next few years.
• The Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas called it a “catalyst in accelerating adoption of low carbon options” along with biofuels, electric vehicles, and green hydrogen.
• The government has claimed that the stove  priced at ₹15,000 will transform cooking practices, save thousands of crores in LPG cost and forex, cut carbon dioxide emissions, and yield marketable carbon credits.

Status of energy consumption for cooking:

• A 2004 report noted that cooking constituted 80% of a rural Indian household’s energy consumption. 
• The International Energy Agency found that 668 million people in India depended on biomass for cooking and lighting in 2013, making India the largest consumer of fuelwood for household use. 

Earlier attempts to transform household energy Consumption: 

• 1950: the National Physical Laboratory created a solar cooker as one of the government’s first attempts to transform household energy consumption. 
  • However, it was expensive and cooked food slowly.
• 1953: Hyderabad Engineering Research Laboratories created a “smokeless chulha” to provide smokeless kitchens for the masses. 
  • However, the chulha’s design and durability were inadequate, resulting in limited uptake among rural women.
• 1980: The government turned to “improved chulhas” in its national energy policy. 
  • The programme sought to check deforestation by reducing fuelwood consumption and also benefit women’s health and finances.
  • However, the programme failed due to reasons like the stove’s construction, high maintenance costs, and alleged bureaucratic corruption. 
• 2009: The government repackaged the scheme in 2009 as the ‘National Biomass Cookstove Initiative’, which has continued to totter on as the ‘Unnat Chulha Abhiyan’ from 2014. 

Similarities between the government’s boost to Indian Oil’s solar stove and earlier initiatives: 

• A public sector innovation with supposedly revolutionary impact after a fuel crisis.
• A gulf between state subsidised schemes and its practical implementation.
• The absence of any long term goal to improve rural incomes despite the correlation between per capita income and type of energy consumption.

Difference between the two approaches 

• In the past, interventions were led by the state and NGOs, and aimed to provide shallow fixes to deep social problems.
• Today, public money is being directed towards heavily subsidized large-scale private projects that produce green energy mainly for commercial use.
• Currently, the technical innovation in renewable energy policy, despite its pretensions, serves to entrench a highly uneven energy landscape.

News Source: The Hindu

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