The state of Power Infrastructure

Following Uss's Example, I will also make it a point of chronicling the journals here. This is part of a course I am doing called Infrastructure Planning and Management and deals with the problems in Indian infrastructure:

Introduction:

The second week began with our presentation on the Power Sector in India. The readings illuminated me to the fact that rapid economic growth in India has increased the burden on India’s infrastructure. The sector, which has in fact been hit the hardest, is power.

I raised several questions to be discussed in class – the chief of them being India lagging behind the expected demand of around 300 GW by the year 2030 and the sustainability issues associated with India’s long term power policy(in particular India’s over-dependence on coal). Dr Ashwin justified the importance of the same by mentioning how the issue gave him ‘nightmares’. The discussion of the class was centered on how rather than focusing on improving generation; we should concentrate our attention on improving the existing infrastructure so as to reduce distribution losses.

Distribution Status:

A recent report I had read “Powering India – The Road to 2017” by Mckinsey India suggested the idea of privatizing distribution circles in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities as part of several other initiatives to reduce India’s AT&C losses to around 15%. This seems to be an interesting proposition for the Government as it will reduce the bureaucratic hassles due to different parties involved, as is the existing case. It reinforces the existing ideology that the private sector, by the nature of its operation will introduce effectiveness. There also exists the possibility of implementing various other distribution reforms, in particular, the introduction of feeders which allow the SEBs to distinguish between agricultural and non-agricultural supply.

Sustainability(Going the Shaastra way?)

I would like to focus a bit on the issue of sustainability which could not be discussed in class due to time constraints. India and China, which already account for around 45% of the world coal use, are expected to drive most of the increase in coal demand to the year 2030. There is a very interesting problem associated with coal usage for meeting India’s power requirements:

“The greater use of more efficient technology will cut the amount of coal needed to generate one kilowatt hour of electricity. However, at the same time it will boost the attraction of coal over other fuels , thereby leading to higher demand.”

Therefore, the only real way to solve the climate problem is to gradually phase out coal and not try to make the generation more efficient! This is quite paradoxical and should create nightmares for policy makers. Thankfully the government is not completely silent, with the introduction of the National Action Plan which aims, among other things, to increase the solar power investments to 20GW by 2020.

Conclusion

The discussion on the power sector can never end. I will simply conclude with the hope that the Government takes steps to improve the efficiency of the entire power infrastructure through effective policies and practices and to move towards sustainability. Maybe Copenhagen will have an answer.