IEA to do thorough review of India’s energy sector, Niti Aayog to provide inputs

Niti Aayog

“Around 10 to 12 IEA representatives will be in India next month. Niti Aayog officials will assist them in providing data, study papers and various documents and facilitate their interactions,” the official said.

The officials from the Paris-based global agency will look at demand and supply scenario of all fuel sources India relies on. This includes crude, gas, coal, solar, wind, hydro and biogas. IEA is known for its high-quality data gathering and interpretation and demand-supply projections.

“The officials will look at the entire energy sector scenario of the country. It’s an important exercise for a country of 130 crore that relies mostly on imports for most of its energy needs. The IEA will finally give its recommendations based on the conclusions it makes about the country’s energy map,” he said.

Besides IEA, Niti Aayog also has tie-ups with Institute of Energy Economics, Japan and US’ Energy Information Administration. The government think-tank has been in the process of developing an energy data management system by learning from bodies like the IEA.

India’s energy map is a highly skewed one where the country relies over 80 percent on imports to meet its crude needs. The country’s crude oil import bill in 2017-18 was $88 billion, almost 30 percent of the country’s overall imports in the year.

The country has large deposits of coal but it is of low-quality and as the international consensus turns against fossil fuels, the government has had to look at shoring up its renewables-based power capacity. Even there, the country reversed a two-year trend of falling coal imports and got in 213 million tonne of the fuel from abroad in 2017-18.

Most of the country’s power plants are currently operating at 60 percent of their capacity even as there is a question mark on the sustainability of the extremely low tariffs for solar that developers have quoted in the state governments’ tenders.

In a tender opened in July by the central public sector undertaking Solar Corporation of India, Acme Solar offered to supply solar power at a tariff of Rs. 2.44 per unit. This is an all-time low for solar power in India.