Areas of Consideration/Analysis

Generation: To ensure adequate capacity addition planning & tie ups for power from various sources at
affordable price to meet the projected increase in power demand for future.

Transmission: Strengthen the Transmission (Inter-state / Intra-state) network to cater to the expected
growth in demand of existing as well as forthcoming consumers.

Distribution: Providing access to all household along with creation of new distribution network or
strengthening of existing infrastructure.

Financial Viability: Financial measures including optimizing investments and undertaking necessary
balance sheet restructuring measures to ensure liquidity in the utility finances.To ensure reduction of AT
& C losses as per the agreed loss reduction trajectory.

Renewable Energy: Plan for enhancement of renewable energy sources along with associated
evacuation system (Green Energy Corridor).

Energy Efficiency: Adoption of various energy efficiency measures like replacement with energy efficient
agriculture pumps, encouraging use of LED bulbs, solar street lights etc. All 29 States and 7 Union
Territories have signed these roadmap documents to achieve the target of providing reliable, affordable
and quality power to the consumers by 2018-19.

Recommendation

Increasing Access:

• Electrify all villages, providing access to all rural households and free connections to all below-poverty-
line families under the flagship program Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY); with an
aim to achieve universal access and annual minimum level of consumption to 1000 kWh by 2012.

Climate Change:

• National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) emphasizes the overriding priority of maintaining
high economic growth rates to raise living standards, the plan “identifies measures that promote our
development objectives while also yielding co-benefits for addressing climate change effectively.” The
plan identifies eight core “national missions” running through 2017. One key pillar is National Solar
Mission which aims to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating an enabling policy
framework for deployment of 1000 MW by 2013 leading upto 20 GW of solar power by 2022. The other
key pillar is National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE) which seeks to strengthen the
market for energy efficiency by creating conducive regulatory and policy regime. NMEEE has been
envisaged to foster innovative and sustainable business models to the energy efficiency sector, including
focus on (i) standards and labeling, (ii) industrial end use efficiency in large consumers, (iii) accelerated
shift to energy efficiency appliances, and (iv) energy efficiency financing platform.

Expanding Generation:

• Adding generation capacity of about 80,000 MW over next five year period (four times of historical five
year average), including 16,000 MW of hydropower.

• Increasing renewable energy from 4% of installed capacity to 10% by 2012, by expanding small and
medium hydro, wind, and biomass.

• Increasing share of solar energy ,under the National Solar Mission of the GoI, to 20,000 MW by 2020
Improving Energy Efficiency:

• Rehabilitating and modernizing about 27,000 MW of old coal-fired power plants.

• Increasing the share of supercritical power plants to 20% of new installations.

Managing Demand:

• Including in irrigated agriculture which accounts for 20-25% of total electricity consumed.

• Adopting stringent and enforceable energy-efficiency standards.

Improving quality of energy supply and service:

• Expanding inter-regional transmission from 10,000 MW to 37,000 MW by 2012

• Upgrading and expanding distribution networks and setting up management information systems as the
network is overloaded and suffers from poor performance with excessively large technical losses of
electricity. Non-technical commercial losses, which capture widespread theft and deficiencies in billing
and collection, are also extremely high. In 2008-09, aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses
ranged between 13 and 81% of electricity generated at the state level, and averaged 28% at the national
level (Power Finance Corp. Ltd., 2010). In an ongoing attempt to reduce AT&C losses to 15%, a
Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme was introduced by GoI . This
programme provides for the conversion of central-government loans into grants contingent on sustained
reductions in AT&C losses at the state level.

Detailed Action

Institutional Focus on Integrating Grid and Off-Grid Efforts

Create a new planning agency for grid and off-grid electrification. The most successful rural
electrification efforts have benefited from dedicated agencies or units within existing electricity
companies that focus primarily on encouraging, planning, and financing rural electricity lines that can be
taken over and maintained by the existing company in a way that makes financial sense. In India, the
Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) is a dedicated agency, but it deals mainly with financing and does
not touch on the other issues. One way to deal with India’s fragmented approach would be to create a
national planning agency that coordinates grid and off-grid investments throughout the country. Such an
agency, either stand-alone or housed within a relevant stakeholder institution, would lead the
development and regular updating of the rural electrification plans and maintain an overall view of grid
and off-grid interactions throughout the country.

Concessions based on minimum necessary subsidies to attract the private sector operating distribution
franchisees in rural areas might be considered. Such concessions could be awarded on a competitive
basis, with a minimum assured supply from the distribution companies. For off-grid operators, an
assured local generation plan could also be considered. The necessary subsidies to make such ventures
attractive could be determined up front, based on existing experience with capital costs, or allocated
according to the actual number of connections provided under an output-based aid mechanism. Such an
approach would allow faster expansion and sustained operation of rural electricity services. Allowing for
fair and flexible electricity pricing, rather than the prices charged by the state distribution companies,
would provide incentives for the private sector to maintain high-quality service.

Planning and Load Development

Monitor the quality of service and connection information. Currently, distribution companies tend to
reduce investment and operating costs in rural areas because of the perception that the business of
rural electrification generates insufficient revenue. This underfunding leads to unreliable electricity
supply. Thus, subsidies or incentives might be needed to ensure that appropriate investments are made
in rural infrastructure. Compounding the problem, state distribution companies do not systematically
keep track of regional power supply reliability or report outages; however, this is the information they
need for regular monthly monitoring and reporting to the state’s regulator and government. Encourage
the productive use of electricity to increase rural demand. One way to improve load development is to
offer a bundle of complementary services as part of an integrated rural development agenda that
encourages the productive use of electricity. Complementary services include access to affordable
microfinance and knowledge and information, including education and training, dissemination
campaigns, and available and qualified human resources. Complementary infrastructure (for example,
roads, schools, information and communication technologies, and availability of business equipment) is
also important. The experiences of such countries as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Peru, and Thailand suggest
that the promotion of and capacity building for productive uses of electricity can increase the
productivity of rural businesses, enable more efficient use of the supply infrastructure, and improve the
revenues of distribution companies, thereby enhancing the economics of electrification.

Utility Cost Recovery and Supply Reliability

Use innovative metering and collection systems. The tariffs paid by customers that connect to the grid
typically do not cover the full cost of providing rural supply. Therefore, conditions need to be created
that (i) enable rural customers to continue paying their monthly bills and (ii) provide the utilities
incentives to service them. Bill collection from rural consumers—no matter how small the bills—is a
priority.

In India, prepaid meters might be used to reduce the utilities’ commercial risks and allow rural
households to have more control over their consumption. In fact, the pay-as-you-go system is quite
familiar to rural users of mobile-telephony, prepaid airtime cards.2 Innovative, prepaid metering
technologies allow customers to determine the percentage of their household incomes to spend on
electricity in a given period and interact with their electricity providers through text messaging and
other means to check balances. Another option for bill collection might

Improve reliability through dedicated generation capacity. Increasing access for the poor, particularly
those at a subsistence level of consumption, is likely to require a relatively minimal increment of
additional generation capacity.
Lower Barriers to Adoption

Improve maintenance of rural distribution lines. Essential to the success of lowering connection costs is
a political commitment to examining the various low-cost electrification approaches as part of a broad
plan to improve access. In India, having reliable electricity supply is critical to improving rates of
household adoption in villages that already have grid electricity service. Thus, improving the rural
distribution systems must be assigned a higher priority to achieve a better balance with the focus on
establishing new connections.

Community Involvement and Service Orientation

Improve avenues of customer interaction. Pathways need to be developed for customers to have more
contact with electricity companies. Local units within companies could be created to deal with rural
service problems and develop solutions. Community-outreach liaison officers are a standard feature in
most developed countries. The electricity companies need to give higher priority to, and perhaps
enhance the job status of, those dealing with customer service, system reliability, and reduction of
power outages. Overall, better trust needs to be developed between the electricity utilities and their
customers. Improving relationships might involve community representatives that can report problems
or request new service for customers. In many countries, consumer meetings were held before the
arrival of electricity, helping to avoid costly and time-consuming disputes over rights-of-way and
construction damage.

Increase community participation and sense of ownership. International experience confirms the many
benefits of involving local communities from the outset, including better designed programs (for
example, Indonesia, Peru, and Vietnam), gaining of local support (for example, Bangladesh),
mobilization of cash and in-kind contributions (for example, Nepal and Thailand), and increased local
ownership, contributing to operational sustainability. Communities can be involved in rural
electrification in various ways. Authorized community members or political representatives can
participate in bill collection or reporting outages or other problems to the electric utilities. Today,
outages often go unnoticed for long periods, causing disenchantment among current and potential
customers in the service area. Also, once the utility companies begin focusing on electricity problems in
rural areas, they can hold regular meetings to inform consumers about the steps being taken to improve
service. Other suggestions might involve such innovations as allowing bill payments by mobile phone or
installing prepaid meters.

Lower Construction and Operation Costs

Redesign and change technical standards. Major opportunities exist to redesign India’s rural electricity
infrastructure to match design standards to electricity demand and ensure that operating costs are not
overshadowed by capital construction for new lines. Where the main expected household uses of
electricity are lighting and small appliances, typical of many rural areas, there is no reason to apply
design standards used for more heavily loaded urban systems. The rural distribution system can be
designed for actual loads, often no more than 30–50 kilowatt-hour per month. Consumption usually
grows at a slow pace; thus, if the necessary design provisions are made, systems can be inexpensively
upgraded later on.
SWOT Analysis

http://www.ijoart.org/docs/Consolidated-Renewable-Energy-A-Future-Hawk-Eyed-Energy-In-India.pdf

SWOT ANALYSIS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY SECTOR IN INDIA

The key external factors (Climate change, Technological development/ technological innovations and
Price of Oil) and internal factors (Policy and Regulatory environment, Research & Development,
Technology innovation & transfer) influence the renewable energy sector in India. An assessment of the
strengths and weaknesses of the renewable energy sector in India has been carried out by the Ministry
in consultation with key stakeholders (Central & State Government Agencies, Utilities & System
Operator, Financing Institutions, Developers, Technology Providers/Manufacturers, Investors and End
Users).

3.1 Strength

 Conducive policy and regulatory framework at central level

 Good resource potential
 Growing technology maturity in certain sectors such as grid connected wind power
 Emergence of indigenous manufacturers and developers
 Ability of renewable energy technologies to offer off grid/decentralized energy solutions

3.2 Weakness

 Absence of conducive policy and regulatory framework in some States

 High cost of certain technologies
 Current acceptability of end-users
 Inconvenience of use of certain renewable energy based applications vis a-vis conventional
means
 Quality and therefore reliability of equipment – particularly for decentralized applications
 Lack of availability of adequately skilled, technical manpower
 Lack of adequate transmission infrastructure in states for evacuation of renewable power
 Lack of implementation infrastructure
 General lack of awareness of end-users

3.3 Opportunities

 Potential
 Favorable Policies
 Demand- Supply Gap
 Inadequate access to energy in rural areas
 Employment opportunities

3.4 Threats

 High subsidy on conventional energy

 Lack of low cost financing
  Lack of distribution and service network
 High cost vis-a-vis international markets

The power sector is changing and changing fast. The transformation of this area from a centralized
network-grid architecture to a decentralized hub making use of many renewable sources of energies like
wind, photo voltaic (PV), hydro, biogas, biomass to form a distributed energy resource (DER) has
accelerated the power generation sector. The growing awareness among developing nations to reduce
carbon emissions and adhere to Kyoto protocol has evolved a more proactive consumer or prosumer.
With many governments coming forward with subsidies for renewable energy (RE) sources has
increased its attractiveness to the general consumer encouraging him with financial viability to install
DER. This paradigm shifts from traditional power plants encompass diverse technologies with advanced
software and hardware management tools that go beyond DER (Asmus, 2017 and Peter (2013).

CONCLUSION

The economic growth of any country depends only on the long term availability of energy from sources
that are affordable, accessible and secured. India is the unique country in the world to have exclusive
ministry for renewable energy development. Previously it was functioned as Ministry of
nonconventional energy sources (MNES) and now it is renamed as ministry of new and renewable
energy (MNRE). Trust is the basis of all achievements and so vision and mission plan for India has to be
revised and should be insisted with 4E’s concept such as “Education, Engineering, Enforcement and
Evaluation”. By allotting sufficient funds to promote the RE projects in time for our future demand to
cater our energy needs. India witnessed the uneven development in renewable energy sectors;
especially, in Tamilnadu has developed more than 70% of its rich wind potential when compared with
other states. In order to avoid disparities, the ministry has to set achievable targets to tap out the
available renewable energy potentials state wise and then only the nation may achieve the accelerated
growth in renewable energy sector. Further, the MNRE along with Indian Renewable Energy
Development Agencies (IREDA) has to resolve bottlenecks in consideration of acquisition of lands, lack of
assessment of renewable energy sources at regional wise, delay in funding the project, construction of
sufficient transmission infrastructure, 50% kickoff grants and subsidy after completion of the project. In
this aspect, the Government of India has to liaison with South Asian Sustainable Development Energy
(SASDE) forum for technical collaboration and financial assistance from World Bank to implement
renewable energy parks and farms in the feasible zones for catering the future needs. To establish
customized solutions in nonconventional energy sector by creating an effective and consultative forum
to bring all stakeholders such as developers, corporations, utilities, consumer groups under one roof to
march towards Indian journey on energy future. The nonconventional energy sector has a value, only if
its value, is valued.