Economic Survey Chapter – 09 – Free PDF Download

INTRODUCTION

• As witnessed over the past two centuries, greater access to energy has fostered economic growth as well as other indicators of human development.
• India has a per-capita energy consumption of only about one-third of the global average.
• India, therefore, needs to quadruple its per-capita energy consumption to meet the rising aspirations of its citizens.
• The overall electricity savings due to adoption of energy efficiency measures in India is estimated at 7.21 per cent of the net electricity consumption in 2017-18.
• The share of renewables in total generation has increased from 6% in 2014-15 to 10% in 2018-19.
• The adoption rate of electric vehicles has been slow, largely due to the lack of charging infrastructure in the country and the time taken for completely charging the EVs.

ENERGY FOR PROSPERITY

• The present day developed countries pursued a path of energy-intensive industrial growth to reach the standards of living witnessed by them today.
• Though India accounts for around 18% of world’s population, it uses only around 6 per cent of the world’s primary energy.
• India’s per capita energy consumption equals 0.6 tonnes of oil equivalent (toe) as compared to the global per capita average of 1.8 toe. Upper-middle income countries

COMPARISON WITH CHINA

• Historical experience across countries shows that in the initial years of economic development, increase in per capita GDP requires a large increase in primary energy per capita.
• China was able to quickly increase its energy consumption and grew rapidly.
• Energy intensity of India’s GDP has been declining in the recent past.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX

• Access to energy is also important due to its linkages with other social indicators.
• There is strong relationship between Human Development Index (HDI) and Per capita energy consumption.
• At low levels of energy consumption, increases in per capita energy consumption leads to considerable increases in human development.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

• Thus if India has to become an upper-middle-income country, it must-
• (i) Rapidly increase its share of the global energy consumption commensurate with its share of the global population
• (ii) Ensure universal access to adequate modern commercial energy at affordable prices.

ACCESS TO ENERGY – ENERGY POVERTY

• There is wide disparity between urban and rural areas in access to energy.
• A large proportion of the population especially in rural areas relies on non-commercial biomass such as firewood and dung cakes for their cooking/heating needs, thereby exacerbating health concerns due to poor indoor air quality.
• While the share of LPG as a cooking fuel has increased over the years, the share of households reporting it to be as the primary source of energy for cooking has been low in the rural areas when compared with the urban areas.

UJJWALA SCHEME

• The access to clean cooking fuel has increased considerably in the recent years, especially through the efforts of the Government of India such as the Ujjwala scheme.
• In 2017, 53% of the population in India did not have access to clean cooking when compared with 68% in 2010.
• But this remains low when compared with other upper-middleincome countries.

• Ujjwala Yojna was launched in 2016, with the aim to safeguard the health of women and children.
• Around 7 crore LPG connections have been provided till April 2019.
• Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG consumer (DBTL) scheme namely, ʻPAHAL’ , was launched on 15 November, 2014.
• PAHAL has been recognized by the “Guinness Book of World Record” as theWorld’s Largest Direct Benefit Scheme.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

• A large part of India’s energy story comes from the various energy efficiency measures that the country has implemented over the years.
• India understood the importance of energy efficiency measures reasonably early in its economic development path and has embraced a number of energy efficiency measures in the last three decades.
• The term energy efficiency broadly means using lesser amount of energy to produce a given amount of output.
• For example, a LED light bulb requires less energy than an incandescent light bulb to produce the same amount of light.
• The institutional and legal framework in the country for energy efficiency has been strengthened through the Energy Conservation Act in 2001, which created the BEE.

IMPACT OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROGRAMMES

• According to a BEE study, overall, this saving has resulted in total cost savings worth Rs.53,000 crore in 2017-18 and contributed in reducing 108.28 MillionTonnes of CO2 emission.
• The contribution is largely from three major programmes – PAT, UJALA and Standard & Labelling.

ENERGY SAVING POTENTIAL OF VARIOUS SECTORS

• The sectors with possible energy savings need to be identified and estimated for effective policy and programme interventions to realize the potential savings.
• The energy saving potential in various demand sectors has been estimated by BEE using three scenarios.

• As a country committed to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and SDGs, it is necessary to prepare and plan strategies to unlock the potential to achieve the energy efficiency potential.
• This should include favourable regulatory structures, strengthened institutional framework, innovative financial structures for affordable financing, use of  technology, and increased stakeholder engagement.

POTENTIAL OF RENEWABLE ENERGY

• While increasing access to energy is important, it is also imperative that this comes at much lower costs to the environment than it has happened historically in advanced economies.
• Progressively declining costs, improved efficiency and reliability have made renewable energy an attractive option for meeting the energy needs in a sustainable manner and helping India pursue its low carbon development pathway.
• The share of renewable energy is progressively increasing in the Indian electricity mix.
• The share of renewables (excluding hydro above 25 MW) in total generation was around 10% in the year 2018-19 compared to around 6% in 2014-15.
• Now globally India stands 4th in wind power, 5th in solar power and 5th in renewable power installed capacity.
• The target is to achieve an installed capacity of renewable based power of 175 GW by the year 2022.
• Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM) scheme has been launched for providing financial and water security to farmers and for de-dieselization of the farm sector.
• The scheme envisages around 2.75 million solar pumps.

WAY FORWARD

• The task now is to ensure that households with LPG continue to use the clean fuel for cooking purposes through continued refilling.
• Not only does India have to meet the energy needs of the future, it has to do so in a more sustainable manner.
• Overall, energy efficiency is a strategy that can lead to a win-win situation through better utilisation of energy resources.

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