The Energy Conundrum:

Availability, Access & Equity

Sujeet Mishra
Advisor(Projects)
Ministry of External Affairs
Chair WG8, India Smart Grid Forum (a PPP initiative of Ministry of Power)
Vice Chair, Computational Intelligence Society, IEEE UP Chapter
Life Member CBIP, Senior Member IEEE, Member : CIGRE, IET
Member SEG4, IEC on LVDC

Mandate

Identifying current system conditions

Common vision of action

I intend to point the saliency of our challenge

I also seek to submit that it is not a case of

availability, or access in many cases-it has to do
with governance and economic linkages

For India-ending energy poverty should be

entwined with equitable economic opportunities

Energy: The Civilisational

Dimension
Connecting the dots: Are the crises new?

Human evolution is coterminous

with

The effort to harness energy systems and

The quest to harness ever more concentrated energy

forms continue unabated

Ever since Sumerians first used animals to plough

To the energy diplomacy & energy wars

By 2035

energy requirement up x2

Electricity requirement up 70%

Earlier Energy Crises

Agriculture is being practiced

Animals have been domesticated

Humanity is burning off the forests as agriculture

supports larger population, metal production picks
up:

one ton of firewood produces 10 pounds of Cu and

20 pounds of Fe

Single iron smelter needed 400 sq miles of forest

for year round production

Earlier Energy Crises

By XIII century wood shortages were so steep that the English were
shutting down metal forges and forbidding cutting down of the Crown
forests

It was the plague in XIV century which wiped a third of european

population that gave respite to the forests

Then appeared coal-which was not amenable to the energy

infrastructure designed around wood

Hi Sulphur and other impurities caused noxious fumes

Couldnt be used in smelting

Couldnt be used by bakers

But gave 5 times more energy than wood

Found that deeper seams had cleaner burning coal

But flooding became the great engineering challenge of the 18th

Chemical Energy gets Harnessed

Thomas Newcomen in 1712 designed a steam powered pump to

drain the mines

Despite operating at 1% efficiency

Replaces 50 horses

Cutting operating costs by 85%

Plays major role in increasing coal output in Britain from 3 mn tons

in 1712 to nearly double by 1750, by turn of century, this figure
was 10 mn t

Coal no longer just a source of heat

Mechanical power is harnessed

Coal becomes undisputed king of fuels

Dawn of new era of steam and mechanisation

Period Defining
Relationships
Energy-Food

From hunting-gathering nomadic life to agriculture centred

specialised societies

Energy-Iron

Permitted mechanisation and harnessing of steam as

energy carrier

Transportation, machine tools

Energy-Electricity

The world we are in

Freedom from dependence on a primary source of energy

Inherent Challenges
in Conventional Model of Electricity

Electricity: Matured Energy

This was logical culmination of work of Edison,
Usage
Tesla, Westinghouse and Samuel Insul largely
set by 1920s

The power sector of today is mature form of

what we achieved in 1960s

Large centralised generation

High Voltage Grid

Standard stability and load flow models

constructed

Even todays text books draw heavily on work of

1960s

Energy Usage: Electricity

Mine Coal

Transport Coal

Burn Coal-cant capture more than 30-35% of heat

Transport electricity

Transform electricity

Distribute Electricity

Consume Electricity

An incandescent lamp had efficiency of 3%!

Lots of it goes unmetered

Inherent challenges in linking remote pockets

Changing Face of
Electricity

Came in a Foreign Affairs magazine

Not by an electrical engineer

Sowed questions on viability of the existing order

Amory Lovins ideas

Need of meeting the local loads locally

Challenge of mating micro with macro grids

How we regulate and standardise interface between the two?

Does the Grid end at the wall socket or goes in to the plugged in device

Sets stage for antithesis of power sector as we had created and still
operate

Thats where the action take place

We are looking at smart meter infrastructure to integrate customers

Energy Poverty
Key poser:
Is it issue of access or availability or affordability?

Framing the Question

Is it availability?

Average plant use for November15 dropped to

60.3%, compared with 65.7% a year ago (CEA)

Its not availability!

The rich also dont have access to quality,

uninterrupted utility power

Depend on backups

So its not just affordability

(http://www.livemint.com/Politics/oNXRRTJdUN0CpCdz7OW7aO/Govt-allows-power-plants-to-sell-idle-capacity-as-usage-drop.html)

RE in India
Rural
# of
Electrification States &
%
UTs

Remarks

100

16

+ 99

Karnataka (99.9%), Uttara Khand (99.5%), Himachal Pradesh

(99.8%), Madhya Pradesh (99.2%), West Bengal (99.97%)

+95

Bihar (97.0%), Rajasthan (98.9%), Chhattisgarh (94.6%),

Jammu & Kashmir (98.3%), Tripura (97.0%), Uttar Pradesh
(98.6%)

+90

JharKhand (91.5%), Odisha (92.8%), Nagaland (94.1%),

Mizoram (90.3%)

+80

Assam (88.7%), Meghalaya (85.9%), Manipur (89.4%),

Andaman & Nicobar (86.1%)

<80

Arunachal Pradesh (70.0%)

So its not distribution either!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_India#cite_note-elect-59

But then where is the

problem?
Is it just bad infra or bad statistics?
Consumption of energy is component of living
experience

Overlooked Dimension?

Health care initiatives, education proliferation has

led to better life spans

Traditional rural economies not able to support

increasing population

Rural-Urban population flows & its impact

10 mn/year

No city equipped to take this inflow

Indias Primary Energy Consumption

(2012) (US: EIA)

Coal
Biomass& Waste
Petroleum & other liquids
Natural Gas
Hydro

Coal; 45%

Biomass& Waste; 22%

Hydro; 3%

Petroleum
Natural
Gas; 7%

& other liquids; 22%

Global:
Biomass & Waste: 10.2%
(IEA, 2013)

Indian Population
1.8

1.35

0.9

Population (Bn)

0.45

http://swarajyamag.com/author/17688/sujeet-mishra

Rural Component
112.50

Rural

Urban

90.00

67.50

% Population
45.00

22.50

0.00

1901

1911

1921

1931

1941

1951

1961

1971

1981

1991

2001

2011

http://swarajyamag.com/author/17688/sujeet-mishra

Rural-Urban Growth
80.0

China

India

60.0

40.0
% Urban Population

20.0

http://swarajyamag.com/author/17688/sujeet-mishra

Smart Village to Smart City to Economic

Circles

Key has to be smart infrastructure

Low energy services (Transportation, Communication,

Governance, Personal Comfort, )

India has run out of traditional options to support additional

population in several cities

Create possibilities to reduce strain on existing urban spaces,

Making existing urban spaces better to live in (comfort to

governance)

Providing axes for guiding migration flows from rural to urban

spaces

Creating population traps between rural and urban spaces

Arresting migration.

Unaddressed Dimension

Much to do with:

Transportation grids-linked to world

Communication grid-linked to world

Electricity-linked to the world?

Challenge of urbanisation at its root has

electricity/energy access in rural enclaves

Denial of opportunity

Like Famines
Its not the absence of food which always cause them, but in
this case, it is not possibly the issue of distribution as well

What Makes these Times Fundamentally

Different

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress & Prosperity in a time of Brilliant Technologies -Erik Brynjolfsson,
Andrew McAfee

The Key Development

Transformation to Digital Economy:
Energy needed to achieve same GDP less

The Meta Plan

Lowering energy intensity

Of governance systems

Business transactions

Reducing needs of physical commute

Education, Health Care, Market

Creation of axes of rural-urban migration flows

Infrastructure in villages need strengthening,

To ensure development, 14 components have been suggested for smart villages

These include skill development training, agro processing/ agri services/ storage,
digital literacy, sanitation, piped water supply, solid and liquid waste management,
village streets and drains, street lights, mobile health unit, upgrading school, intervillage road connectivity, citizen service centres for electronic delivery of citizen
centric services/ e-gram connectivity, public transport and LPG gas connections
(http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/rs-5000-crore-plan-govt-plans-300-clusters-of-smart-villages/)

But at the same time, single city led model would possibly not deliver-we need
Economic circles

Rural Energy System

Need to add rural energy as dimension of smart

rural living experience

Connection to main grid cant be reliable due to

situational challenges, even if rest of the problems
taken care of

Meshing: Mini/Micro, Nano, Pico Grids

Creating community UPS using renewables and

smart grids

Rural Energy System

Address need of heat for comfort & cooking as different

entities

Village level, self contained bio digesters for community needs

of heat, electricity, cooking fuel, manure

Target increasing working hours in to night & productivity in

cold days

Case of an artisan community near Lucknow

Poor but not destitute

A couple of hours of discretionary light

Electricity for running internet applications

Use of efficient non-polluting heating solutions

Thanks!