Need to boost capacity to meet India's growing power demand: Union minister RK Singh

RK Singh

One of the key focus areas of the government now is electricity generation capacity addition to meet the country's growing power demand, Union Minister for Power and Renewable Energy RK Singh said in an interview with Moneycontrol.

When asked about the key priority areas in the energy sector, Singh said, "I need to add a lot more capacity because our economy is growing, which is great. This shows that our country is growing. As far as generation is concerned, that is the target, and especially I have to add a lot more capacity in renewables. I need more round-the-clock power."

India's energy demand in financial year 2022-23 increased by 9.5 percent compared to FY 2021-22, which is a record high in the past decade, data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) showed. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has also projected India's power demand to grow at a rate of about 6 percent annually from hereon.

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The minister also gave a lowdown on the ongoing electricity capacity addition across different sectors. He said at least 44,000 megawatts (MW) of thermal capacity is under different stages of construction. In the renewables segment, the government has already announced its plan to install 500 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. Besides, 15-16 GW will be nuclear capacity. At present, India's nuclear power capacity is 6,800 MW. In the hydropower sector, the country currently has 46,000 MW installed and another 14,000 MW is under construction. Singh also said the government will be starting construction for another 16,000 MW of hydropower projects soon.

He said even power transmission capacity needs to be augmented. "As far as transmission is concerned, I am going to add more capacity in transmission as well. I came up with a plan for 500 GW of renewable energy. Look, otherwise, in transmission, we are a world leader. We have connected the whole country to one grid. Now, we are the largest single-integrated grid in the world," Singh said.

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"As far as integrated grids go, we are the largest, and we are still adding capacity. Not only that, we've changed the rules. We brought in ease of doing business. We put in place general network access. That means you get connected to the grid anywhere and you get connected to the entire country. So, we have truly implemented one country, one market when it comes to grid connectivity," the minister said.

DRAFT GUIDELINES FOR POWER DEMAND FORECAST

The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) on April 13 released draft guidelines for utilities to prepare uniform power demand forecasts to improve infrastructure planning.

According to the draft guidelines, forecasts for power utilities should be carried out for at least three scenarios: optimistic, business as usual and pessimistic. CEA said the forecast should be prepared for the medium-term and long-term.

The medium-term forecast should be more than one year and up to five years, while the long-term forecast should be for at least the next 10 years.

"The forecast should be prepared in consultation with all stakeholders, including industrial, agricultural, municipal corporations, drinking water departments, captive power plant owners and other departments involved in planning and implementing electrical energy-intensive schemes," it stated.

The guidelines want the forecasts to be prepared at the discom/state level at least, but more granular forecasts should be attempted at the zonal, circle, district, sub-station, and feeder/transformer levels if adequate granular level data is available, the CEA said.