Study of energy sector in India : Coal, biomass, and solar thermal
Student name: Ms Ruchi Soni
Guide: Dr Arun Kansal
Year of completion: 2009
Host Organisation: The World Bank
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Mikul Bhatia
Abstract: India is facing significant power shortages and has embarked upon a large generation capacity augmentation program encompassing various technologies – conventional and renewable. As on March 2009, India depended on 77,670 MW of coal-fired power plants representing 53% of total installed capacity of 147,900 MW and nearly 70% of the total generation and merely about 7% of Renewable energy. It has been recognized that despite significant focus on renewable sources of energy to meet the burgeoning energy needs of India, coal would continue to lead the way for power generation in the foreseeable future. This paper captures a wide spectrum of coal related issues in the power sector including availability, production, supply (including logistics) and its use in power plant, and documents the gaps in various aspects of the coal supply chain (the institutional framework, classification, pilferage, coal import) and covers barriers in launch and scale up of two renewable energy sources of solar thermal technology and bagasse-based cogeneration in cooperative sugar mills. The analysis shows that clean coal technologies like underground coal gasification and coal bed methane should be stressed upon, considering India’s dependence on coal. Some policy changes too would encourage investments in new mining technology and open up the sector for competition. Potential avenues for The World Bank involvement were explored for supporting pilot transactions using solar thermal technologies, and on bagasse based cogeneration in cooperative sugar mills of India, based on which it was concluded that while the cogeneration sector in sugar mills did not merit a World Bank involvement owing to complexities of the sector, the Bank could explore getting into solar thermal technology by supporting R&D initiatives and/or by technology demonstration by supporting pilots. A small case study on an earlier aborted Bank-GEF project proposal at Mathania in Rajasthan is also mentioned.
Keywords: Bagasse-based cogeneration, coal, energy, India, solar thermal, sugar mills
