Clean Energy Transition

Context: 

After South Africa, Indonesia, and Vietnam, India is considered the next candidate for a JET­ Partnership.

Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP)

•  JETP is an  initiative of the G7 countries.
• Aim: To help large developing economies to move away from coal in their electricity systems and achieve the Paris climate goals.
•   It seeks to minimize emissions from the power sector, phase down coal usage and create a strategy based on expansion of renewable energy.

Clean energy targets of India:

• The country’s vision is to achieve Net Zero Emissions by 2070, in addition to attaining the short-term targets which include:

• • Increasing renewables capacity to 500 GW by 2030,
  • Meeting 50% of energy requirements from renewables,
  • Reducing cumulative emissions by one billion tonnes by 2030, and
  • Reducing emissions intensity of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 45% by 2030.

Issues that concern transitions and JET­ Partnership:

• Equity Concern: Energy transitions could give rise to intra­generational, intergenerational, and spatial equity concerns. The Central Electricity Authority projects a near doubling of electricity demand by 2030.
• Financial investment required for clean energy: The initial investment required to transition to clean energy, will need trillions of dollars.
• Impact on Jobs and Welfare Program: Transitions affect near­ term fossil dependent jobs, disrupt forms of future energy access, shrink State’s capacity to spend on welfare programs, and thus exacerbate existing economic inequities between coal and other regions.
• Lack of intergenerational Equity: Existing JET­P deals pay limited attention to intergenerational inequity, such as job losses resulting from a coal phase­down.
• Difference between Industrial and emerging economies: The emphasis by developed countries on coal phase­down, without adequate attention to the country context, disregards the crucial difference in energy transition between industrialised and emerging economies.
•  High-carbon industries and outstanding debt to Indian financial institutions: High-carbon industries – power generation, chemicals, iron and steel, and aviation – account for 10% of outstanding debt to Indian financial institutions. However, these industries are also heavily indebted and therefore have the least financial capacity to respond to shocks and stresses.
• Shortage of Experts: A shortage of experts in India’s financial institutions who had the expertise to appropriately advise the institutions on such a transition.

Way forward

• A low hanging option is shifting energy demand patterns in ways that enable faster RE capacity addition: solarisation of agricultural electricity demand; electrification of diesel-powered Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs); and decentralized RE for residential cooking and heating.

• Domestic manufacturing of clean energy components is critical to sustain a JET, build energy self-sufficiency, and tap the green jobs promise of 21st-century energy.

• India needs to negotiate access to markets outside India as part of a JET­ Partnership, to reduce the cost gap through economies of scale.

• There is a case for re-aligning the current use of coal resources to enhance efficiencies until the period of phase­down.

• Optimizing use of coal fired power plants by locating closer to where coal is mined rather than based on energy demand in States will lead to fewer emissions and cheaper power because

1. 1.     Coal transportation accounts for one-third of the cost of coal for power plants;
   2.     Transportation of coal is more energy intensive than transmission of electrons.                                                                                                                                                             

News Source: The Hindu