Renewing energy options
THE Indian government has given top priority to the development and exploitation of renewable sources of energy to meet the requirement of rural communities. With economic expansion, vast opportunities have been made available for bringing about active involvement of the private sector for the rapid growth of the renewable energy (re) sector. Keeping this as the backdrop, recently in Madras, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organised an energy summit, 1996, where a day's deliberation on renewable energy was included.
The installed energy capacity of India as on March 31, 1996, stood at around 80,000 mw. Given this scenario, among Asian countries, India is and would continue to remain one of the major consumers of fossil fuels. The growth in our gdp is of the order of five to six per cent. Every one per cent growth in gdp requires 1.6 per cent increase in power consumption.
Unless the present level of co2 emissions from fossil fuel burning is reduced to 60 per cent of the present level, there could be a major climate shift by the middle of the next century.
The Central Electricity Authority estimates that the average gap between the demand and supply by 1997 is likely to reach 14 per cent and that of peak demand to 28 per cent. The demand-supply gap is bound to rise further. It is in this scenario, the new and renewable sources of energy are poised to play a vital role in the coming years.
In the cii conference, top functionaries from the ministry of non-conventional energy sources (MNES), decisionmakers in the private sector, technocrats and foreign delegates presented their views.
Addressing the conference, A K Gupta, advisor (power), mnes, said that according to a working group of the Planning Commission, nearly 4,500 mw of power can be generated through re sources, during the Ninth Plan period. The break-up was: wind energy
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