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Grid Interactive Renewable Power in India—a Review

  • Regional Renewable Energy (A Sharma, Section Editor)
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Abstract

In February 2015, India announced 175 gigawatts (GW) of capacity additions in renewable power by 2022. Private sector dominates the Grid Interactive Renewable Power (GIRP) but at the same time is dependent on government policies substantially. The scenario of high investment costs is changing, especially in the case of wind and solar power, yet the challenges like high debt cost, variability output, inadequate grid infrastructure, and competition with conventional power prevail. A state-wise analysis reveals that the installed capacities in case of wind and biomass respond strongly to the power tariff for industries while the relationship with the benchmark tariffs is weak though positive. Solar potential is still largely untapped but gaining momentum. With time, it is important to create a scenario wherein GIRP responds strongly to the benchmark tariff identified by the states as presently it responds to power tariff for industries for augmented interest of private sector as one of the means of achieving the ambitious renewable energy targets.

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Notes

  1. A village in India is considered as electrified if 10 % of the households are electrified.

  2. Installed grid interactive renewable power capacity divided by potential

  3. The generation stations with installed capacity less than or equal to 25 MW are indicated under (RES). Renewable Energy Sources (RES) include small hydropower (SHP), biomass gasifier, biomass power, urban and industrial waste power, and wind energy.

  4. RE technologies are generally available in the kW range (up to 100 kW) and also in the megawatt range (up to 5 MW). As against this, conventional power size plant sizes are in the range of 250/500/800 MW thus getting enormous advantage from economies of scale.

  5. Curtailment occurs due to congestion in the grid, i.e., the grid is congested and cannot carry any more electricity, or if there is no buyer for the electricity.

  6. LCOE is the total cost to build and operate a new power plant over its life divided to equal annual payments and amortized over expected annual electricity generation. It reflects all the costs including initial capital, return on investment, continuous operation, fuel, and maintenance, as well as the time required to build a plant and its expected lifetime.

  7. Industrial tariff for the year 2014 is considered.

  8. In bagasse cogeneration waste of sugar mills known as bagasse (The dry pulpy residue left after the extraction of juice from sugar cane) is used as fuel for electrical energy generators by gasification technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Energy and Resources Institute, 6C, Darbari Seth Block, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, 110 003, India

    Manjushree Banerjee

  2. Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), B-21, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi, 110 016, India

    Gautam Dutta

Authors
  1. Manjushree Banerjee
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  2. Gautam Dutta
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Correspondence to Manjushree Banerjee.

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Conflict of Interest

Manjushree Banerjee and Gautam Dutta declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Highlights

• Grid interactive renewable power (GIRP) is an option for providing cleaner, affordable, and reliable power to both the rural and growing urban population.

• Recently, India announced 175 gigawatts (GW) of capacity additions in renewable power by 2022.

• GIRP installations are primarily dominated by the private sector while the sale and returns are mostly governed by the policies and government and not the market.

• The increased installed capacities of GIRP among the leading states are due to wind energy; other resources are still to be largely harnessed.

• Wind- and solar-based GIRP power plants are now able to provide electricity at cost comparable to conventional electricity.

• Usage of wind potential has stronger and positive relationship with the power tariff for industries than the wind power tariff.

• Solar energy is still largely untapped for grid interactive renewable power but weakly responds to the solar as well as an industrial tariff.

• The installed biomass-based grid interactive power responds strongly to industrial tariff though the states with high biomass potential encourage biomass power by determining high biomass tariff.

• Scenario is to be created wherein the potential utilization of renewable power responds to the benchmark tariffs for renewable power as well as power tariff for industries to continue interest of private sector in renewable power to achieve the announced targets.

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Regional Renewable Energy

Appendix

Appendix

Table 6 Potential of renewable power and installed capacity of grid interactive renewable power in India (MW)
Full size table

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Banerjee, M., Dutta, G. Grid Interactive Renewable Power in India—a Review. Curr Sustainable Renewable Energy Rep 3, 43–52 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40518-016-0050-4

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