‘Energy sustainability should involve efficiency in generation'

Renewable energy sector will be a major determining factor of which wind energy will be crucial to achieve the Power Ministry's mission – ‘Power for All by 2012', observed Mr Swaminathan Krishnamurthy, Associate Director, Ernst & Young.

He was speaking at the 4th Renewable Energy 2011 Conference: Wind Energy Edition, organised by Comnet Conferences, a division of Exhibitions India and organisers of Renewable Energy India Expo.

While stating that India would need increasing amounts of energy at cost-effective rates and given the supply side limitations and environmental concerns of fossil fuels, the country would have to increasingly rely on alternative sources of energy such as nuclear and renewable energy, Mr Swaminathan said energy sustainability should involve efficiency in generation along with fuel supply security and demand-side management.

Renewable energy, particularly wind, would play a critical role in the scheme of things in the journey towards sustainable development, he added. Highlighting certain key issues in the wind energy sector, he said that from a regulatory perspective, Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) would require distribution licensees, captive power consumers and open access consumers to purchase or generate a certain percentage of their total energy requirement from appropriate renewable sources; on the manufacturing side, there is a need to explore the financial models and drivers that attract finance.

“Grid connectivity is still a challenge; fluctuations in power output due to inherent variability of wind power can create problems in demand-supply balance in traditional grids. This is compounded with a weak transmission and distribution infrastructure for transmission of power from wind farms to load despatch centres,” he said, adding “poor project implementation, transmission and distribution infrastructure shortages, lack of access to credit and the slowdown due to lack of fuel, particularly coal resulted in a 36 per cent shortfall in the installed capacity for grid power in the XI Plan Period.”

The target for renewable energy purchases for the 2009-10 fiscal was set at 5 per cent of the total grid power purchases, with provision to increase it annually by 1 per cent for the next decade

Considering that many of the country's captive power plants are under-utilised with a large section of consumers power-deprived, it is imperative to encourage peaking power plants and take the surplus power to the grid. The envisaged power market would rely on competition rather than regulation, he said.