The Threads of Hope in Energy

Many, of certain vintage, would remember Winds of Change that Klaus Meine sang in 1990. The context was fall of Berlin wall, the end of communism and the subsequent integration of East Germany with its West brethren. Two decades after, the underlying spirit of the song, of the German heavy metal band Scorpions’ vocalist, finds relevance in energy sector in India. The mental blocks are dissolving; from it rising, the green shoots.

The doctrine of sustainable development is making sense to many of the captains of industry. The deployment of renewable energy is more than altruism; it is profitable too. For, the truth has dawned that the conventional energy solutions has almost run out of steam. Changing tack has become necessary—well, for the reason that businesses exist, to ensure long-term profitability.

Living symbiotically with nature, consequently, is gaining credence. The choice for green energy is growing.  Many of them feel that the investment in renewable energy such as solar and wind should increase quickly. The government’s role, according to the industry, is to create a policy framework that ensures solar photovoltaic cells and solar thermal cells become the norm. “The only sustainable path to staying in black is, in fact, to go green,” remarked Mukul Saxena, Head, corporate research and technologies, Siemens India, sometime back in a conclave organised by Mint.  

Hard facts too point a similar wave. The wind energy sector has attracted foreign direct investment of Rs 1,510 crore over the past three years. “In the renewable energy sector, wind energy has emerged the fastest growing category,” the Minister of New & Renewable Energy, Dr Farooq Abdullah, informed the Lok Sabha a week ago. The mantra of maximisation of profit has taken a new course. 

The twin currents that would drive the shift towards green energy are investment and innovation. There would be collaboration between large and small companies. “Large companies that will lead some innovation will have to collaborate with smaller ones to develop that kind of technology,” opines Venkatesh Valluri, chairman and president, Ingersoll Rand (India).

How do we spread new technology in renewable energy quickly to reach a critical mass? The option, interestingly, could be either top-down or bottom-up. “The husk power generation in Bihar is a business innovation. For big companies, it is not so much about changing the source of power but rather conserving the power they use. It is different for each section. If you reduce air conditioning in your office by one degree, it may reduce power consumption by 10-12 percent,” explains Girish Paranjpe, Managing Director, Bloom Energy.

For long, India’s policy makers couldn’t estimate India’s natural advantages.  For them, it was like the proverbial space beneath an oil lamp. “We have nine months of sunshine, while Germany, with six months of sunshine, is the solar technology leader,” analyses Niranjan Khatri, general manager, WelcomEnviron Initiatives, ITC WelcomGroup. The perception is changing. The intent to go green is now perceived as a business opportunity. The idea is catching up. One initiative is influencing the birth of the other.  A case in point is IBM smartgrid.

Raghunandan KS, Director, Integrated Technology Services, IBM India and South Asia, explains IBM smart grid, “It is a part of IBM smarter planet project. For sustainable cities, it will encompass multiple technologies starting from water management, power optimisation to having sustainable use of technology. There are stages to adoption.

The first stage is compliance to certain government norms. The second is social consciousness, a citizen phase. The third is the innovation phase, where you look at not just doing the right things but also look for financial opportunities—a business development opportunity in helping other companies and the society to become greener, while also making our own business greener.” 

The evolution of thought is evident in business model. The leading green companies wish to steer away from government largesse. “Just as subsidy is not a good idea, tax is also not a good idea. Green initiatives have an economic rationale by themselves,” asserts Raghunandan.

The private enterprises, interestingly, are catalysing the public policy in India’s energy landscape. The winds of change are real.

Reap the Captive Mines

Amidst the clamour for green energy, which though necessary; the truth is, there’s no respite from the old horse, coal. The reasons are obvious. For decades, the country’s primary energy resource has been coal. The contribution of coal to India’s primary energy supply pool is over 50 percent. Its share in the country’s electricity generation is about 70 percent. The fulcrum of the economy is so much intertwined with coal that switching to other forms of energy overnight is implausible.

But the state of the availability of coal is far from comfortable. The shortage of coal is rising. The power plants, which are dependent on coal, are in a grim situation. So are the industries like cement. Sadly, more than the resources, the cause is the inept policies of the government. The situation that exists today could have been avoided had the government not resorted to an opaque policy while awarding captive mines. As a result, out of the 215 blocks allocated during 1993-2011, only 26 have started production.

“Altogether the allocated captive blocks hold a reserve of about 50 BT, which being more than the total extractable coal reserves of Indonesia. Together, they hold an enormous potential for fuel security in India,” says InfralineEnergy’s report ‘Captive Coal Blocks in India-2011, Unveiling the Opportunities Beneath’. The advantage with captive coal mining is that it will help in producing low cost power and thereby, would induce tariff competitiveness in the market. 

Why then, the other coal blocks were not developed? The allegation is rife in the air that the majority of these blocks were awarded almost for free. “The free allocation might be the single big reason for that many privately owned captive blocks not being developed,” says the report. The Ministry of Coal in a bid to save its face has de-allocated 24 coal blocks from the laggard developers.

Apart from environment clearance, the biggest hurdle that captive coal mining faces is the lack of mining expertise. The private participation could accelerate the need for advanced technologies to spot the large coal reserves and extract coal with minimum damage to the surrounding environment. Acquisition of land for mine will be easier, if the profit from mining is shared with the affected population. Equipment financing and leasing which is now confined to construction equipment industry would be available like the developed countries as the sector gains momentum. It would reduce the financial burden on the developer.  To develop the captive blocks linked with the capacities coming up during XII Five-Year Plan, the total investment requirements have been projected to be INR 32000 crore.

With the increase in the price of imported coal, the hope lies in captive mines. The policy makers should pick up few cues from the success of natural gas in Gujarat.

Progress without Hiccups

The face of a society reflects the source of energy it uses. Accelerated pace of growth cannot be at the cost of the environment. As the wisdom to preserve nature finds importance in the ingredients of economic growth, the policy makers should catalyse the pace of natural gas usage. The advantage with natural gas is that it combines the best of both worlds. Its high thermal content and relatively clean combustion traits compare well with coal and crude oil derivatives.

Natural gas is also benign to the environment. The emissions of CO produced during combustion of natural gas are 80 percent less compared to coal. The contribution of natural gas in emission of SOX and particulates is almost negligible when compared with other fuels. “The adoption of natural gas as an energy source, as a result, will not only decrease the emission level, but also increase the plant efficiency due to clean burning characteristics. Higher the efficiency means greater the conservation of energy and thus lesser environmental impacts,” says InfralineEnergy’s report “Natural Gas Market in Gujarat: Assessing the Progress and Prospects”. The report analyses the entire gas value chain within Gujarat in a bid to help businesses understand the underlying dynamics of a thriving gas market.

Gujarat is the only state, which has operational state level gas grid in India with natural gas pipeline network spanning 2300 kms. The state also has four city gas distribution (CGD) companies supplying compressed natural gas (CNG) and piped natural gas (PNG) to over 12 cities across the state. Besides this, Gujarat remains the only state in India which has successfully implemented gas distribution business at the village level.

The use of natural gas brings an additional source of revenue from protecting the environment. It has been estimated that Gujarat’s gas grid has reduced approximately 17 million tonnes of carbon emissions, which accounts for nearly 42 percent of total Certified Emission Reductions (CER) generated in India. The state is producing around 25 million CERs per year with a potential to grow up to 50 million CERs per year in the next few years.

The tangible benefits are also visible. Energy consumption accounts for nearly 30-35 percent of the total manufacturing costs of a ceramic unit. The ceramic industry depends on grid electricity, natural gas, charcoal, lignite and diesel. The supply of natural gas by GSPC Gas has revived the ceramic business in the Morbi region. Over 40 percent of the ceramic units in Morbi region use natural gas as a clean fuel while the rest continue with coal and bio-waste. Though the price of natural gas is more than coal, the natural gas has found favour with a number of SMEs such as ceramic and textiles industries within Gujarat. The reason, the return on investment is high. The natural gas provides high thermal value and less emission, which results in good quality of products.

The availability of natural gas in the villages of Gujarat has recharged the rural economy. Charotar Gas Sahakari Mandal Limited (CGSML), India’s sole village gas distribution company, supplies natural gas to 11 villages in Anand district. Founded in 1999 as a cooperative sector initiative, it distributes gas to villages which would not be covered by other city gas distribution companies operating within the city’s municipal limits. CGSML distributes piped gas to 11,000 domestic customers, about 100 industrial and 250 commercial customers. One of its biggest customers is Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., more known, by its brand Amul.

The future of natural gas seems bright with the discovery of shale gas. The major basins in the country have been identified as shale rich. However, the inadequacy of technology to drill and to extract the gas hampers its growth. “The use of natural gas has the potential to reduce the country’s oil import bill and save the environment too,” says an energy expert.

Renewable Energy Salvation for Rural India

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it,” said Albert Einstein. Selling solar lighting systems to villagers seemed absurd to many educated Indians in the early 1990s. Though the liberalization of economy had started, it was yet to sweep clean the old mindsets. But Harish Hande, who was then in late 20’s, could see light in renewable energy, when others couldn’t think beyond kerosene lanterns in village huts. 

With a seed capital of Rs 1000, SELCO, the company, was founded with Neville Williams in 1995. Since its inception, the company has sold, serviced and financed over 125,000 solar systems to households in rural pockets of Karnataka, parts of Gujarat and parts of Kerala. He opted for an open source model for the energy solutions and has refused to hold the Intellectual Property for his solar powered lights—in the hope that the products, while copied, would be improvised further. The ripples of his initiative, as a result, would reach wider courting new followers.

Hande, who has been given this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award, has crushed the myth that poor people cannot afford renewable energy technologies; poor people cannot maintain sustainable technologies and social ventures cannot be run as commercial entities. His model of small-scale standalone solar installations is hope for some 500 million people in India, who don’t have access to grid at all. As a result, the electricity produced, where it needs to be consumed becomes important. A bit of imagination and change in mindset could help in deploying such energy solutions in some segments of urban India.

The inspiration came to Hande while on a weekend trip to Dominican Republic, a leader in energy initiatives in the Caribbean. But he could understand it well as he was associated with energy research for a while. At that time, he was engaged in doctorate in energy engineering (solar specialty) at the University of Massachusetts (Lowell). 

An undergraduate in Energy Engineering from the IIT, Kharagpur, Hande could figure out how to bridge the finance to make the solar lighting a success. SELCO empowers its customer by providing a complete package of product, service and consumer financing through grameena banks, cooperative societies, commercial banks and micro-finance institutions.

Though it may sound absurd, but there are many pockets in urban India where solar lighting could replace the grid connected ones. The street lights and those used outside the residences could go for solar. Even the parks could opt for such an energy solution. Some of the hoardings in New Delhi are using it. Apart from reducing the pressure on the grid, the increasing use of solar would reduce carbon emissions to the environment. It would also reduce the government’s import bill on kerosene.

What’s needed is a push from the government. It is more of a management issue than technology. Hande’s success story needs to be replicated in urban India. One hopes, someone like Hande emerges in urban India—soon.

Save Every Drop of Power

Even though, it may sound weird, in a mass production era, supply not always adjusts to demand. Over the past decade, the Indian power sector has almost doubled its installed generation capacity, from about 96 GW in 2000 to 170 GW in 2011. Yet, the demand for electricity continues to surpass supply. The Central Electricity Authority has estimated an energy shortfall of 10.3 percent and a peak shortage of 12.9 percent in the country during 2011-12. Adding capacity further would be a challenge, as the land to build new thermal, nuclear or hydro plants and the fuel to run them wouldn’t come easy. The price for capacity addition would be so steep that it would make more sense, if policy makers pay heed to reducing consumption as well.

Oversupply of a commodity often builds inefficiency and leads to wastage. A judicious use, therefore, stretches every drop of its utilisation. The ways to save energy has resulted in the evolution of Negawatt management, which is primarily, based on the old adage, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”A Megawatt, which is not produced or, an avoided Megawatt, is classified as a Negawatt. If 100 MW of energy is saved, it means 100 MW of clean energy is produced and that too, without polluting the environment. Increasing the use of solar heaters and compact fluorescent lamps though are simplest options to implement, but they aren’t enough. In addition to these initiatives, adopting telecom operators’ strategy of charging less for call rates at off-peak hours, that was vogue in India a decade ago, would help in the evolution of a smart grid for power transmission and distribution.

A traditional grid is a mechanical device, which allows sufficient power to flow safely through the system. But it has outgrown its role with the rise in complexity of users and sources of power. Blending from different sources of power such as thermal and renewal has become a necessity to ensure consistency in power supply. The problem with solar, wind and biomass generated power is that they are incapable of producing electricity all through the year. They need to be supplemented by thermal and hydro.

An artificial intelligence system, therefore, is needed. Using information technologies, it, a smart grid, could manage the demands of varied users. A smart grid is a dynamic system built around the principles of Negawatt management. It would encourage the consumers to use less energy during peak hours and shift the time of energy use from peak to off-peak hours such as night or weekends.

Though a commodity, electricity can’t be stored for long. The utility company can, however, use smart grid to reduce demand by direct control on equipment used by the consumer or through a tariff clause, whereby, a consumer reduces his load at certain hours of the day. As a result, during the peak hours, the consumers would receive less, but not so meager, that they have to resort to diesel gen sets or battery back-ups.

A smart grid in the long run can even offer users like schools and hospitals to have more power, even during peak hours, by paying more. The long-term possibilities are enormous. It would save the environment from avoidable emissions. The policy makers should make it happen. Sooner, the better it is.

Time is Ripe for India Model Energy

For too long, the country relied on a centralized model borrowed from the West. In tandem were the policy makers in India, who couldn’t think beyond one-size-fit-for-all solutions. They couldn’t understand that a society is not an amorphous mound, but comprises different segments of people; each with distinct culture and with varying degrees of aspiration. The energy requirement for each segments, therefore, are different. The solutions are to be weaved around the needs of people, their culture and the communities they belong to.
   
The rising demand-supply gap in energy reaffirms that the past model has outgrown its role. Increasing the generation of electricity through building a new thermal, nuclear plant or a large dam is going to be tough. The availability of land wouldn’t be easy. The policy of coercive method of acquisition of land for such projects wouldn’t work as it is against the basic tenet of market economy that professes ownership of individual property. In addition, despite illiteracy, the voice of the disadvantaged has become louder. Saving the forest cover has become a necessity. Without the forests, there wouldn’t be adequate rains and rivers would be extinct. The linear thinking of pushing for energy at the cost of water, and by extension, food security would be too foolish.

On the top of it, India’s domestic coal production is grossly insufficient to fuel the thermal power plants. Importing coal too has become expensive. The declining productions of natural gas from Krishna-Godavari basin have ruined the hopes of a North Sea-style oil-and gas-powered growth of the economy. Since the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the nuclear power has lost its sheen as a source of clean energy. Its credibility is in doubt, not only in the US, but in other countries as well. Italy has imposed a one-year moratorium on its plants for a long-term nuclear energy programme. Germany’s 17 nuclear reactors are in pause. China has suspended all its nuclear project approvals despite its earlier plan to quadruple its nuclear energy capacity by 2020.

The viable option left for the government of India is to push for renewable energy. Depending on the location and the community’s requirement, the renewable source could be solar, wind, biomass and micro-hydel. The electricity could be drawn from a grid. The off-grid applications are suitable for small requirements and locations, which are remote. Replacing diesel generated power in rural areas would serve two purposes. The country would save from importing diesel and the environment would be saved from diesel’s emissions. 

The biggest hurdle continues to be the mindset of policy makers. The irritants in the renewal’s journey are more of management issues. The solutions could be found with a bit of imagination, but with a high dose of intent. “Renewal Energy can power the world and the road block is not money but enabling policy,” says Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's study, “it can do so at a more cost competitive and faster rate than conventional energy sources.”

A KPMG report, authored by its executive director, Santosh Kamath, states that solar will equal cost of coal power by 2017 in India. With limited choice, the momentum is likely to pick up soon. “Renewable is no longer ‘alternative energy’, it is pretty much as mainstream as it gets,’’ asserts Anish De, chief executive, Mercados EMI Asia. The circumstances will push for an energy model that is intrinsically Indian, and inclusive.

Green thy Fund

The Industrial Revolution reinvented the wheels of progress. It began in the United Kingdom in the 18th century and slowly spread to other parts of the world. The world’s per capita income in the next two centuries went up by 10 times and the global population by six times. Nobel laureate Robert E. Lucas, Jr. had remarked “For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth.”

The production of goods through machines made goods more affordable. It killed manual production, but raised human productivity. Consequently, the consumption of energy too went up. Even in those heydays of the revolution, English poet and painter William Blake had cautioned through his poem dark satanic mills that the fumes coming out of the machines would destroy the environment. Blake’s observation is prophetic. 

The progress initiated by the Industrial Revolution has completed its circle. The threat on the earth is real. But throwing the baby with the bathwater is not a solution. Thankfully, the human mind too has evolved with fresh thinking and new impetus. One of the finest developments has been the reward to pollute less. Emitting toxins less into the air is an incentive, a revenue stream, to improve the overall profitability of the venture. It has challenged the mind to develop new technologies that are more efficient than those existed before.

Saving the environment too is no longer a fad, but a serious business. As the lifeline of any business is funds, a number of funds have come up that support companies which are reducing their emissions that causes global warming. The arrival of Green Mutual Funds (GMF) is a reflection of the maturity of the financial markets.  Like a conventional mutual fund, the GMF is a managed collective investment scheme, which pools money from many investors to invest in short-term and long-term instruments in various environmental markets—carbon, markets, renewable energy, market and energy efficiency markets.

Boston-based Winslow Green Mutual Funds are excellent global examples of green mutual funds. The Winslow Green Growth Fund is a growth equity fund. Though it invests in companies of any size capitalisation, the fund’s focus is to invest a significant portion of its assets in domestic small capitalisation companies with a market capitalisation of below $2 billion. It targets companies with clean and efficient business practices that seek to minimise their environmental impact and those enterprises, whose products or services offer solutions to environmental problems. Though the fund is industry agnostic, it prefers sectors such as clean energy, water management, resource efficiency, sustainable living, environmental services, green transportation and green building products.

GMF engage integration of financial and environmental analysis in existing and emerging markets’ trends and policies and, identify the prospects for development of a comprehensive investment portfolio. Investing in green funds, however, does not necessarily bring higher or lower returns than the average mutual fund. In fact, these funds may not be suitable for short-term returns, as they are prone to price fluctuations throughout the trading period. The inherent volatility in the carbon prices makes these funds unsuitable for buy and hold strategy. “For risk-averse investors, GMF would prove beneficial under long-term investment objective,” says a report from an energy consulting firm.

Since the investments required are large, the GMF may be suitable for high net worth clients like large corporations, industries, foundations, endowments, and insurance and pension funds. The retail customers may find it difficult to invest in GMF, at least in the short to mid-term, owing to the large investment needs of the GMF and tertiary role of individuals in the green or carbon markets. But the good thing is, a journey has been made. The interests of business and environment have converged. It augurs well for the society.