A Webinar Series to Discuss Multiple Pathways to a 21st Century Energy System India is poised to play an important role in the 21st century global energy system. The third largest energy consumer is projected to account for the largest increase in energy demand of any country worldwide over the next two decades. Simultaneously, by setting ambitious renewable energy (RE) targets – 175 GW by 2022 and 450 GW by 2030 – the country has placed itself at the forefront of the global energy transition. Meeting this energy demand and achieving the renewable energy targets will require a fundamental tran ..read more

India’s urbanising middle class is at the brink of an unprecedented increase in residential cooling demand. New research by Centre for Policy Research and the University of Oxford answers a set of fundamental questions around India's cooling transition. Rapid urbanization, increasing incomes, and rising temperatures are driving more Indians to buy cooling appliances. Cooling demand is projected to be a significant driver of future electricity consumption; between 2019 and 2030, it is estimated that 4.8 billion new units of cooling equipment will be sold globally, resulting in a large rise ..read more

Over the last year, a number of state governments have announced the launch of emission trading schemes (ETS) to control air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. India's first experience with ETS was a pilot scheme for particulate matter (PM), introduced in 2019 in Surat, Gujarat. Incidentally, this was the first time an ETS had been introduced for PM in the world. Following this experiment, clean air markets for PM and GHGs in Surat, Ludhiana and Ahmedabad were announced in the past year.  ETS as a regulatory tool appears to be gaining traction in India, but concerns relating t ..read more

This blog post seeks to provide the highlights of the webinar discussion held on April 13, 2021, as part of the India Energy Transition Dialogues – a series convened by the Centre for Policy Research to explore different paths to meet India’s 21st-century energy goals. Each webinar in this bi-weekly series discussed different pathways proposed by thinktanks and research groups working on specific pieces of India’s energy transition puzzle. These discussions – by drawing on practical experiences and exploring the costs and opportunities associated with these approaches – see ..read more

As we stare down the Covid-19 pandemic, the crisis has put the trend towards an energy transition at risk. While some fear that the transition may be left flat, others are optimistic that it will get supercharged by this cataclysm. India moved to the forefront of the global energy transition with a target of 175-gigawatt (GW) renewable energy (RE) capacity by 2022. This is likely to undergo an upgrade to 450 GW by 2030. Simultaneously, policy interventions are being planned to push electric vehicles, energy storage, smart grids and other modern energy technologies and practices. Will the pande ..read more

As Indian homes will be a key site where future cooling demand will play out, awareness of energy efficiency is crucial. More frequent and intense heat waves are expected with a rise in global temperatures due to climate change. In the last three decades, there have been 660 heat waves across India causing 12,273 deaths. India, with currently low penetration levels of air conditioners (ACs), will likely require substantial cooling services to keep citizens healthy and productive. The India Cooling Action Plan projects the number of room air conditioners to become about four times in the next 1 ..read more

Successive farmer protests in India are manifestations of chronic agrarian distress and persistent downtrends in the rural economy. Ironically, while contributing less than one-fifth of the national GDP, agriculture employs more than two-fifths of the workforce and is the primary source of livelihoods for nearly three-fifths of the population. The discourse around the current farmer protests, mobilised against the three farm laws enacted by the Union government, has underscored major fault lines in India’s approach to agriculture which is characterised by a dependency on public procurement, en ..read more

22 representatives from research groups, civil society organisations, and consultancy organisations have signed a collective statement of priorities that calls for a state-led deliberative planning process to avoid major disruptions and losses, address historical injustices, and build a resilient energy future. A collective statement signed by 22 energy experts urges the governments to establish a deliberative planning process to assess the economic, social, political and environmental costs and opportunities of India’s transition away from coal. Proactive planning and interventions ..read more

Prelude In the Lok Sabha, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while advocating for the private sector’s role in India’s economic progress, questioned the power wielded by Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers (often called babu). “Sab kuch babu hi karenge. IAS ban gaye matlab woh fertiliser ka kaarkhana bhi chalayega, chemical ka kaarkhana bhi chalayega, IAS ho gaya toh woh hawai jahaz bhi chalayega. Yeh kaunsi badi taakat bana kar rakh di hai humne? Babuon ke haath mein desh de karke hum kya karne waale hain?” (Babus will do everything? Just because one became an IAS [officer], s/he will ..read more

Plummeting solar and wind prices have generated a great deal of excitement in India’s energy markets. The argument has been unabashedly materialist: we have sunlight, wind and land, and should therefore be able to build large amounts of renewable energy. Kathryn Hochstetler’s new book Political Economies of Energy Transition: Wind and Solar Power in Brazil and South Africa pries open the hidden political world of the transition. Through richly detailed case studies of the two countries, she tells the story of a desperate coal giant, astute bureaucrats, powerful industry lobbies, massive state ..read more