‘Using renewable energy for cooking needs will take more time’

It is going to take a longer time for renewable energy and electricity to replace conventional fuels for cooking.

Speaking at a webinar on World Biofuel Day, Tarun Kapoor, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said, “In cooking and industrial use, the prime need is for heating and therefore electricity may take sometime before it can take over.”

“Liquid fuels, largely dependent on fossil fuels, and gas will continue to play a major role. India largely depends on imported crude and has to move to domestic forms of energy that are available,” Kapoor said.

Speaking to

BusinessLine in an earlier interview, Vipul Tuli, Managing Director, at Sembcorp India, said, “The rural electrification programme and setting up of solar pumps will largely be able to channel the opportunity for cooking too. Once the farmer has irrigated fields, there will be excess electricity that can be substituted for domestic utility.”

Commenting on the potential for biofuels in India, Kapoor said, “The scope for producing biofuels is immense in our country. We can reduce import dependence by exploiting ethanol, biodiesel and biogas,” he added.

Kapoor said that India will soon also have targets for blending of biogas,similar to ethanol blending targets. “We will soon come up with a target for biogas also. It cannot be completely LNG or domestic gas, because that scope is limited,” he said.

He said for biofuels, there are three major areas — ethanol, biodiesel and biogas. “If we are able to exploit these three, then we can reduce our dependence on import of crude to a very large extent and import of gas also”, he added.

Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have procured 113.09 crore litres of biodiesel from December 1, 2019 to August 3, 2020. Under the biodiesel blending programme, OMCs have increased biodiesel procurement from 1.1 crore litres during 2015-16 to 10.6 crore litres during 2019-20, an official statement said.