ANNOUNCEMENTS
India is the most populous country in the world with an estimated 1.42 billion people, a figure, which is further expected to grow to 1.71 billion as per the Population Division of United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) (Pti, 2024). This will lead to subsequent increase in the energy demand. With the current diversification away from fossil fuel to mitigate climate crisis the ability to leverage on additional capacity building of renewable energy resources such as ocean energy, may be considered crucial.
The progress in commercializing Ocean energy has lagged behind when compared to other renewable energy sources in terms of energy based power generation despite the global ambition to switch to green and cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels (Adrian de Andres et al., 2017a, de Andres et al., 2017b). India possesses immense potential for Ocean energy in a similar way of having access to 8,000 km coastline and 2.37 million square kilometres of Exclusive Economic Zone of India (EEZ).But the fact remains that the industry faces enormous hurdles in terms of viability to explore and exploit the potential of its blue economy.(Adrian de Andres et al., 2017a, de Andres et al., 2017b).
The study aims to identify all the factors that have inhibited the deployment of Ocean Energy technologies in India. It is crucial to understand the relative significance (and extent) of the challenges posed by each factor in order to resolve and promote the OE sector in India. This would require identification of each barrier on the basis of literature review. Thereafter , using the Modified Delphi method each barrier is analysed in the Indian context. Further, the barriers are ranked and given weights according to the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). This would guide our understanding of the main hurdles which may be rectified at the policy level to enable the uptake OE technology to diversify our energy basket.
