India's Power Sector

[Mort Walker]

Thank you Surajsan!
I was wondering if you could put those links as stickies at the top of this thread similar to the STFUP thread in the Strategic Forum?

The Power Ministry shows very clearly that thermal power is over 68% of production in India. Power will come from all sources nuclear, hydro-electric,renewables, and thermal. Thermal will continue to provide India most of its power for the foreseeable future; despite the academic fad of renewables.

[Kashi]

Going through the power ministry website, a few things are evident.

1. In terms of infrastructure, there's a clear thrust towards augmenting the existing power generation capacity and rolling out electrification in hitherto uncovered habitations. All updates and progress reports are to this effect.

2. There are mentions of "Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS)"- aimed at overhauling the existing transmission and distribution network to the last mile and the "Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY)" that aims to completely separate agriculture and non-agriculture feeders and ramp up the T&D infrastructure in rural areas. However, I could not find any reports or updates or "milestones achieved" information on these.

Power generation will need to go hand in and with modernising and upgrading T&D infrastructure, including proper metering and cutting down on "T&D losses" (mostly theft) for the reforms to truly take effect.

Could anyone share more information on this?

[chaitanya]

I'd like to add that even though solar appears to be clean and renewable, there is a significant environmental cost of producing solar cells. Lithium-Ion batteries are even worse - both require environmentally unfriendly extraction techniques and must be replaced after a fixed period of time. When evaluating the environmental impact of switching to solar for base load, all these 'hidden' environmental costs need to be factored in.

For example, in the context of electric cars, this paper shows that electric vehicles produce about 40% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional internal combustion vehicles.

Here is a nice article from wired about the same subject: Tesla’s Electric Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think

I am not aware of a similar study for solar power, but before we go crazy over solar or any other technology, I think a careful study should be done. All this hype around technology is what got us here as a civilization in the first place!

[guru.shetty]

Niti Ayog:

* Only electric cars sold in 2030
* Govt starts a battery factory in 2018
* Taxes on fossil fuels to support charging infrastructure.

Solar and electric cars complement each other very well.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN183010

[Mort Walker]

Niti Ayog:

* Only electric cars sold in 2030
* Govt starts a battery factory in 2018
* Taxes on fossil fuels to support charging infrastructure.

Solar and electric cars complement each other very well.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN183010

From what I understand, these are only suggestions as by Niti Aayog. Whether they come to fruition is another issue altogether and are terrible suggestions by western think tanks to brainwash GoI into crippling the Indian economy.

The future for vehicles will be electric, but by using fuel cells and not the clunky technology of batteries. It would be better served to leap frog in to technologies for fuel cells and catalysts that separate hydrogen and oxygen from water.

See this article from Stan Madrassa: Single-catalyst water splitter from Stanford produces clean-burning hydrogen 24/7

[nachiket]

*Only electric cars sold in 2030

Most car owners in India live in apartment blocks. They don't have their own houses with garages. Where will they charge their electric cars? Most people can only afford 1 car as well. Unlike US electric car owners who use a regular petrol powered car for outstation trips.

[Mort Walker]

^^^The surface of the car will be made of solar panels that are 400% efficient onlee, but you can't drive at night.

[Karthik S]

Piyush Goyal‏Verified account @PiyushGoyal
Transformative policies of Govt. are fulfilling entrepreneurial dreams and taking a step towards #MakeInIndia

[Supratik]

Look at the links posted. Renewables are going to go up in the "near future" to more than 40% which means thermal is going to go down in the "near future" as a percentage. The deadline has been shortened from 2030 to 2022-2025. The coal production target is for existing thermal power plants which are not being used to maximum capacity. New thermal plants may not be added.

Someone mentioned why electricity tariffs are high in India. Get the inefficient government out of power production, transmission, distribution and privatize it and the tariff is going to go down. Just like it happened in the telecom sector.

[guru.shetty]

*Only electric cars sold in 2030

Most car owners in India live in apartment blocks. They don't have their own houses with garages. Where will they charge their electric cars? Most people can only afford 1 car as well. Unlike US electric car owners who use a regular petrol powered car for outstation trips.

Valid challenges. The general idea is that if there is a place to park your car, either at work or home, there should be no reason to not have a charging port. Easier said than done though.

But there is 13 more years to reach there. Norway is going all electric rapidly already. Battery prices are falling rapidly. The cheapest meaningful electric car today is chevy bolt and in Indian money it is 24 lakhs. Thats the biggest challenge.


But on the positive side, we can stop importing oil from our enemies. Indian cities top the most polluting cities in the world. Our cities will have good air to breathe with electrics.

[A Deshmukh]

Mahindra e2oplus Electric car.
https://www.mahindrae2oplus.com/pages/
Priced about 7.7L but save on registration taxes.

[Mort Walker]

Look at the links posted. Renewables are going to go up in the "near future" to more than 40% which means thermal is going to go down in the "near future" as a percentage. The deadline has been shortened from 2030 to 2022-2025. The coal production target is for existing thermal power plants which are not being used to maximum capacity. New thermal plants may not be added.

Someone mentioned why electricity tariffs are high in India. Get the inefficient government out of power production, transmission, distribution and privatize it and the tariff is going to go down. Just like it happened in the telecom sector.

Where did you get that renewables would be 40% of power production? At current trends by 2025 India will produce over 550GW with 100GW coming from solar and at best another 20-30GW from other RES. Depending on the economics, new thermal gas may be added.

[Supratik]

India is committed to 40% non-polluting by 2030. Now they are trying to reach there by 2022-2025. I am talking about thermal from coal not gas.

[Mort Walker]

India is committed to 40% non-polluting by 2030. Now they are trying to reach there by 2022-2025. I am talking about thermal from coal not gas.

Which is not that hard to do as thermal from coal is already 60%. The thing is at what capacity are existing coal plants operating and the prospects of them being upgraded for further capacity? GoI is committed to producing 1000MMT of coal by 2020.

In the future if fuel cells can utilize natural gas, then that is going to be the big energy breakthrough.

[uddu]

Piyush Goyal‏Verified account @PiyushGoyal 48m48 minutes ago

Another milestone towards PM @narendramodi's vision of clean affordable power for all: Bhadla Solar Park achieves tariff of Rs. 2.62/unit

[uddu]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_UfQsgUIAA4Fc2.jpg

[SBajwa]

It is not just Coal, Nuclear, Wind, Sun, hydro but there are other ways to generate electricity

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-unbeliev ... ectricity/

1. Harvesting Body Heat
A number of major cities have begun harvesting the heat trapped in their vast metro systems. Millions of commuters (not to mention the trains themselves) sealed in the insulated environment of the metro can lead to an enormous temperature differential.
The heat produced can be converted into power and heat for local homes, apartments, and businesses. Five hundred homes in the London borough of Islington, offices parallel to the Stockholm metro, and a Parisian residential block are all harnessing human heat, with more buildings set to benefit in the near future.

2. Confiscated Alcohol
When life gives you lemons, burn the lemons and use them to power trains.

Sweden’s national customs service confiscated 185,000 gallons of illegally smuggled alcohol last year. Rather than pour it all down the drain, the Scandinavian’s plan to convert the seized alcohol into enough biogas to fuel over 1,000 trucks and buses, and even a train.

3. Used Adult Diapers

Japan’s population is getting old fast. So old that in the near future, Japanese sales of adult diapers will outgrow sales of regular diapers. Seriously.

However, whilst the aging Japanese population may be of wider economic concern, Tottori-based Super Faiths Inc. innovative SFD Recycling System sees the burden as a power-solution.

SFD System

The SFD Recycling System takes used diapers, then sterilizes, pulverizes and dries them in their patented machine, returning biomass pellets reading for burning in the appropriate furnace, returning around 5,000 kcal per kg recycled. Not a bad return for an entirely useless landfill article. Capable of “servicing” around 700lb of used diapers per day, the system could well make its way into retirement homes and large hospitals.

4. On the Dance Floor

More people power, please! The kinetic energy generated by our everyday tasks is under the spotlight as underground stations, nightclubs and gyms begin to utilise piezoelectric harvesting technologies. Piezoelectricity is generated in certain crystals in response to compression force. If you have a surface that’s moving for any reason, you can attach piezoelectric crystals to it, and get small amounts of energy out.

Piezo Dancefloor

The accumulated electrical energy can be used to power services within the same building or area, or routed to a new location. Piezoelectricity isn’t an entirely new phenomenon, with DARPA evaluating piezoelectric generators in the boots of soldiers. However, we utilise piezoelectricity more often than you might think: electric cigarette lighters feature a piezoelectric crystal with sufficient voltage to ignite the gas, resulting in a flame.

5. Thorium Reactors

Miniature nuclear reactors powered by just one ton of radioactive thorium could feature in a new generation of local power generation schemes. That said, thorium reactors would require high-energy neutrons to trigger their fissile activity, which has lead British scientists to begin work on miniature particle accelerators.

Panoramic Virtual Tour Of CERN Comes To Google Street View If you ever wanted to visit and see the Large Hadron Collider, now you can. Thanks to Google Street View you can take a panoramic virtual tour of the CERN site.
Read More

CERN Particle Accel

A prototype, the Electron Model of Many Applications, or EMMA, operates at around 20 million electron volts, or 20 MeV, which is a strong start. That said, a fair degree of skepticism remains around the use of thorium and the practicalities of building and maintaining a larger number of local nuclear reactors.

6. Solar Power in Space

What could be more exciting or futuristic than a massive solar array, floating on a platform above the planet, beaming wireless electricity toward the Earth’s surface. There are a lot of advantages to this option: no need to take up valuable real estate on Earth, and no energy fluctuations caused by weather.

That said, there is a long way to go with this form of alternative power. Wireless electricity transmission, long-term radiation shielding, meteorite protection, and the sheer cost of putting the equipment into orbit are just some of the stumbling blocks.

7. Solar Wind

While we’re on the subject of space, let’s talk about solar wind.
This winter is one of the best times to see polar lights. The next best time is in about 10 years, so you better catch them now. Be in the right place at the right...

The solar wind consists of an enormous number of charged particles, emitted by the sun at very high speeds. In principle, these particles can be used to generate electricity by using an enormous solar sail and a charged wire, which generates energy from the solar wind passing along it. According to preliminary analysis by the University of Washington, the amount of power you can generate is essentially limitless, constrained only by the size of the solar sail you deploy.

300 meters of copper wire, attached to a two meter wide receiver and a 10 meter sail could generate sufficient electricity for 1,000 households.
A satellite with a 1,000 meter of cable, and a sail 8,400km wide, could generate one billion billion gigawatt’s of power.

Sounds good? It would be – if such a solar sail could be produced and launched into an appropriate orbit.

8. Jellyfish

Our oceans are becoming more acidic. As such, Jellyfish populations are soaring. Most of them aren’t for human consumption, but they may prove to be more useful for another global issue. Swedish researchers have been steadily liquifying large numbers of Aequorea victoria, a glowing jellyfish common to the shores of North America.

[guru.shetty]

Bhadla Solar Park auction discovers solar price at Rs 2.62/kwh. Looks like financing costs are coming down very fast. Very soon solar prices will be half that of new coal based thermal.

[Rishirishi]

India also has to develop a advanced battery based on metals available abundantly in India. But it seems that Aluminium based batteries are nowhere near commercialisation.

Storage is NOT a problem. It is possible to pump up water in hydroelectric plants during oversupply and harvest it when ever required. Energy loss is acceptable.

Pumped storage is the largest-capacity form of grid energy storage available, and, as of 2017, the DOE Global Energy Storage Database reports that PSH accounts for over 96% of all active tracked storage installations worldwide, with a total installed nameplate capacity of over 168 GW.[3] The round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%,[4][5][6][7] with some sources claiming up to 87%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-st ... lectricity

As India has plenty of Hydroelectic already installed, It should not be a great issue to store the electricity. But better infrastructure and power transmission will be required. If battries become cheaper, it will also be posible for households to have their own indipendent power supply sytem.

[Rishirishi]

Opperating cost of coal power ranges between Rs2,6 to Rs6,25. depending on the location and power plant quality. When solar power is being sold for under Rs3 per KWH, it is only a matter of time before the entire coal industry will shut down. There is plenty if desert non productive land in India, which can be used to generate power.

[Rishirishi]

Bhadla Solar Park Gets Record Breaking All Time Low Solar Bids



Enjoy

[hanumadu]

Arun Jaitley Retweeted
Sujan Chinoy‏Verified account @SujanChinoy May 8

Finance Minister @arunjaitley met Osamu Suzuki Chairman Suzuki Motor http://Corporation.Suzuki +Denso+Toshiba 2 make Li-Ion batteries in India.

Just like LED bulbs and solar panel are made cheaper, Modi will make lI-Ion batteries cheaper too soon.

[Kashi]

Toshiba's memory chip unit is for sale, bidders from PRC, SoKo and others are circling around. I think this would be a good opportunity for Indian firms to get their hands on some very advanced technology.

[Mort Walker]

Opperating cost of coal power ranges between Rs2,6 to Rs6,25. depending on the location and power plant quality. When solar power is being sold for under Rs3 per KWH, it is only a matter of time before the entire coal industry will shut down. There is plenty if desert non productive land in India, which can be used to generate power.

These are bids, not actual production cost and certainly not retail cost per unit. Some amount of solar makes sense in India given its latitude. However coal is here to stay and GoI is committed to it.

[Supratik]

Retail price in the NCR area is Rs 8-9. So at Rs 3 production price of renewables it is at par with existing supply. The question is will the producer break even and make profit. That is what remains to be seen. If it is economically viable it is pretty much the end of the road for coal based thermal.

[JTull]

Retail price in the NCR area is Rs 8-9. So at Rs 3 production price of renewables it is at par with existing supply. The question is will the producer break even and make profit. That is what remains to be seen. If it is economically viable it is pretty much the end of the road for coal based thermal.

There is an assured off-take and price escalation built into these capacities being put up for auction.

[guru.shetty]

Golden words from Piyush Goyal. We have a visionary leading the power ministry.

Since the government took charge, solar power capacity had grown from 2,600 mw to 12,200 mw, producing 20 billion units of electricity.
"A country that makes 1,200 billion units, what is 20 billion units? Can you call it the cause of the problems that the thermal sector or any other sector is having? So it's all excuses and it's a naysayer philosophy - whatever good is happening, criticise it,"

"Solar is India's energy security in the long run at low cost. We can run out of coal, oil, gas or uranium, you won't run out of wind, sun or water. All these hydro plants set up 50 years go are giving power at 20 paise. Three rupees power, 25 years from now, will be similar - other forms of power will probably be Rs 20-25."

"I suspect that by 2030 we should be able to start selling electric cars across the board and I believe these cars will not only be more efficient, they will also be much cheaper to operate,"

"Costs will fall drastically. Maintenance cost will fall, operating cost, fuel cost will fall. It will be much cleaner energy. Battery prices have fallen drastically. Next three years, I expect them to halve or go lower."

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... aign=cppst

[guru.shetty]

Retail price in the NCR area is Rs 8-9. So at Rs 3 production price of renewables it is at par with existing supply. The question is will the producer break even and make profit. That is what remains to be seen. If it is economically viable it is pretty much the end of the road for coal based thermal.

Solar panels have upfront cost. But no fueling cost. So you know the cost of the project upfront. You then look for financing. Based on the interest rates available, you keep a margin for yourself (say around 15-18%) and then give a quote. Things won't go wrong as long as Govt does not stop buying electricity or goes for heavy curtailing because of inefficient grid or because the distribution companies go belly up. That can always happen with nutty bureaucrats, judges and new govt. And when that happens you end up with NPAs and banks take a hit - which inturn is just average joes losing money.

[Mort Walker]

Retail price in the NCR area is Rs 8-9. So at Rs 3 production price of renewables it is at par with existing supply. The question is will the producer break even and make profit. That is what remains to be seen. If it is economically viable it is pretty much the end of the road for coal based thermal.

There is an assured off-take and price escalation built into these capacities being put up for auction.

These prices do not include battery storage and the idea is to put the power generated during the day on to the grid. Other thermal plants will carry the load at night. The other cost not taken into account is that the panels will have to be replaced in 5 years as their efficIency will degrade and more efficient panels will be available.

100GW of solar is certainly doable in India, but when that happens expect thermal power to be over 400GW.

[Rishirishi]

There is an assured off-take and price escalation built into these capacities being put up for auction.

These prices do not include battery storage and the idea is to put the power generated during the day on to the grid. Other thermal plants will carry the load at night. The other cost not taken into account is that the panels will have to be replaced in 5 years as their efficIency will degrade and more efficient panels will be available.

100GW of solar is certainly doable in India, but when that happens expect thermal power to be over 400GW.

Storage is NOT a problem. It is possible to pump up water in hydroelectric plants during oversupply and harvest it when ever required. Energy loss is acceptable.

Pumped storage is the largest-capacity form of grid energy storage available, and, as of 2017, the DOE Global Energy Storage Database reports that PSH accounts for over 96% of all active tracked storage installations worldwide, with a total installed nameplate capacity of over 168 GW.[3] The round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%,[4][5][6][7] with some sources claiming up to 87%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-st ... lectricity

As India has plenty of Hydroelectic already installed, It should not be a great issue to store the electricity. But better infrastructure and power transmission will be required. If battries become cheaper, it will also be posible for households to have their own indipendent power supply sytem.

Thermal power plans are being scrapped. All of this dirty and expensive power source will be replaced by 2035 at the latest. Becase it makes economic sense.

[Katare]

I'd like to add that even though solar appears to be clean and renewable, there is a significant environmental cost of producing solar cells. Lithium-Ion batteries are even worse - both require environmentally unfriendly extraction techniques and must be replaced after a fixed period of time. When evaluating the environmental impact of switching to solar for base load, all these 'hidden' environmental costs need to be factored in.

For example, in the context of electric cars, this paper shows that electric vehicles produce about 40% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than traditional internal combustion vehicles.

Here is a nice article from wired about the same subject: Tesla’s Electric Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think


I am not aware of a similar study for solar power, but before we go crazy over solar or any other technology, I think a careful study should be done. All this hype around technology is what got us here as a civilization in the first place!

Electric car's main value doesn't come from CO2 reduction as such but from pollution control at densly populated cities and towns. Especially particles, sulfurous chems and NOX present a serious health hazard which is going to become unmanageable in few years without new driving mechanisms. These pollutants will still be emitted at lower or same levels but away from the population centers. Hydrogen vehicles also provide same benefits although H2 production consumes way more energy that what you get out to a vehicle. So main goal is to have clean power at the point of use.

[Kashi]

So main goal is to have clean power at the point of use.

This basically amounts to shifting the pollution from cities to the mines and factories. Tomorrow, there could be new regulations limiting the environmental impact of such mining and production, then where do we shift the pollution to?

The only thing one can say is that, electric vehicles, as you pointed out, cause pollution far away from the site of use unlike fossil fuel-powered vehicles that cause pollution everywhere- from extraction to the point of use.

[Kashi]

As India has plenty of Hydroelectic already installed, It should not be a great issue to store the electricity. But better infrastructure and power transmission will be required. If battries become cheaper, it will also be posible for households to have their own indipendent power supply sytem.

Thermal power plans are being scrapped. All of this dirty and expensive power source will be replaced by 2035 at the latest. Becase it makes economic sense.

You are putting a lot of eggs in a basket of assumptions. At most, new and improved sources of generation will supplement fossil fuel/nuclear-based systems. So while it's likely that the share of fossil fuel/nuclear powered plants will go down, they are unlikely to be eliminated, until and unless we are able to find a source of energy that is cheap, plentiful and capable of generating uninterrupted power 24/7.

Hydroelectricity, appears to be nearing saturation, if not saturated already, in India. We have a few new plants coming up, but most suitable places are either taken up or out of bounds due to environmental concerns (loss of biodiversity, seismically sensitive etc). I do not have the stats on hand, but of our total hydrolectric potential, how much have we have tapped and how much can we realistically tap?

Solar does not provide continuous uninterrupted power, ditto for wind. To overcome the problem of intermittent supply, we'll need batteries, lots and lots of them and cheap as well. Should the prices fall (based on the trends they are and will) manufacturing so many batteries will still have its own environmental cost, not to mention the cost of servicing and replacing them as the performance degrades. Not to mention, the solar panels will themselves need to be installed over vast tracts of land and need constant servicing and even replacement.

Geothermal is unlikely to work beyond localised sites in India. The highest geothermal power generation is ~850 MW in New Zealand, even Iceland, which is blessed with volcanoes, generates only ~650 MW of geothermal electricity. I don't know where we can install geothermal plants in India, maybe Andamans, but we don't need much there anyway. There were reports a few years ago where Renuka Chaudhary was pitching for tidal-based plants in her constituency- Khammam.

[hanumadu]

Piyush Goyal‏Verified account @PiyushGoyal 1h1 hour ago

Green future: Latest Solar power auction at Bhadla Solar Park 3 sets new record with electricity tariff of Rs 2.44/unit.

[disha]

Storage is NOT a problem. It is possible to pump up water in hydroelectric plants during oversupply and harvest it when ever required. Energy loss is acceptable.

Not all HE dams are geared up for that., however one can have "lake dams" in Arravallis and in 'hills' of Kumaun specifically acting as 'mass' storage in terms of GWs. In effect you need two lakes - one at a higher elevation and another at a lower elevation.

Capital costs are very very very high on the above. And in a high population density country like India., there are very few places.

Again what works in Amreeka, does not work in India.

[Uttam]

Solar power tariff drops to historic low at Rs 2.44/unit

NEW DELHI: Solar power tariff dropped further to hit a new low of Rs 2.44 per unit in the auction conducted for Bhadla solar park.

"In another auction for Bhadla Solar Park 3, solar power tariff touched record low of Rs 2.44/unit," a senior official said.

The official added that ACME Solar Holdings emerged as the lowest bidder by quoting Rs 2.44 per unit tariff for 200 MW followed by SBG Cleantech One at Rs 2.45 per unit for 500 MW capacity.

[disha]

Coal (oil & gas), Nuclear, HE, Solar & Wind will all play their part., but for base power only viable energy options are coal and nuclear.

Offshore wind farms sound very cool., maybe they can even be made to withstand cyclones - but in a offshore wind farm spread over say 100 sq. km (10x10)., how will you repair the wind mill if it has issues? Basically how will you ensure a very high "mill utilization factor"? It is not easy., people just look at map and plonk in the wind mills as if they are toys. And they are not just to be protected from cyclones or tropical depressions., but from sea tides and waves as well... Of course technology is ever marching and there will be progress in future.

Costs of solar power appear low because the returns on capital investment is short., if land is available then setting up a decent sized solar park can be done in a matter of months. The revenue start streaming in sooner than say a coal plant which will take years. So capital going after solar and not new coal plants is not a surprise.

On the other hand., existing coal power plants already has the infrastructure paid up., all they need to do is move up the efficiency scale and plant load factor (lack of coal really affects this number) and they will be able to compete extremely well with solar. And remember, they provide the base load.

Investment in nuclear power is necessary for long term. If the nation needs energy security into the next century or two., nuclear is one of the option. Hopefully fusion will come online by then.

Natural-gas based power generators are still necessary to generate power on demand., electricity that way is produced when it is demanded. They will not go out of fashion., but will be used as on-demand generators.

On Solar., un-doped silicon cells have already reached its theoretical limit (or close to it) in efficiency., the next stage in efficiency is by using different materials or combinations thereof like multi-junction concentrators for eg. http://web.archive.org/web/201508231335 ... 46-percent

Over the next decade., on solar two things are going to happen - the cell efficiency in general mass-scale production will breach 26% and the storage capacity of li-ion batteries will double at half the cost and half the weight or rather 4x increase in battery capacity (approaching 600 Wh/Kg). Note that the current "dirty" li-co-ni 'lithium ion' battery will be replaced with different chemistries like LiFePO4 or Li-C or Li-Si or Li-S.

At that capabilities., battery backed solar panels will out-compete every other option other than coal and nuclear. But more importantly., roof-top solar will become very competitive*.

Put it this way the future is bright for existing Coal (& gas), new generation Nuclear and Solar. Of course Solar will always take the mind space and maybe even a larger component of an energy mix., but 2-3 decades from now., Coal/Nuclear will form the base load and Solar with smart grid and efficient distributed storage will take care of peaks.

*The next set of residential builders will offer the roof-top to solar companies to lease the area to install solar panels and pocket the lease money and sell the power to the residencies or their EVs. The HOA of those residencies will be howling and consumer complains will be filed. Lawyers, judges and Hapta-Vasulis will still make their money.

[Rishirishi]

As India has plenty of Hydroelectic already installed, It should not be a great issue to store the electricity. But better infrastructure and power transmission will be required. If battries become cheaper, it will also be posible for households to have their own indipendent power supply sytem.

Thermal power plans are being scrapped. All of this dirty and expensive power source will be replaced by 2035 at the latest. Becase it makes economic sense.

You are putting a lot of eggs in a basket of assumptions. At most, new and improved sources of generation will supplement fossil fuel/nuclear-based systems. So while it's likely that the share of fossil fuel/nuclear powered plants will go down, they are unlikely to be eliminated, until and unless we are able to find a source of energy that is cheap, plentiful and capable of generating uninterrupted power 24/7.

Hydroelectricity, appears to be nearing saturation, if not saturated already, in India. We have a few new plants coming up, but most suitable places are either taken up or out of bounds due to environmental concerns (loss of biodiversity, seismically sensitive etc). I do not have the stats on hand, but of our total hydrolectric potential, how much have we have tapped and how much can we realistically tap?

Solar does not provide continuous uninterrupted power, ditto for wind. To overcome the problem of intermittent supply, we'll need batteries, lots and lots of them and cheap as well. Should the prices fall (based on the trends they are and will) manufacturing so many batteries will still have its own environmental cost, not to mention the cost of servicing and replacing them as the performance degrades. Not to mention, the solar panels will themselves need to be installed over vast tracts of land and need constant servicing and even replacement.

Geothermal is unlikely to work beyond localised sites in India. The highest geothermal power generation is ~850 MW in New Zealand, even Iceland, which is blessed with volcanoes, generates only ~650 MW of geothermal electricity. I don't know where we can install geothermal plants in India, maybe Andamans, but we don't need much there anyway. There were reports a few years ago where Renuka Chaudhary was pitching for tidal-based plants in her constituency- Khammam.

Storage is NOT a problem. It is possible to pump up water in hydroelectric plants during oversupply and harvest it when ever required. Energy loss is acceptable.

Pumped storage is the largest-capacity form of grid energy storage available, and, as of 2017, the DOE Global Energy Storage Database reports that PSH accounts for over 96% of all active tracked storage installations worldwide, with a total installed nameplate capacity of over 168 GW.[3] The round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies between 70%–80%,[4][5][6][7] with some sources claiming up to 87%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-st ... lectricity

As India has plenty of Hydroelectic already installed, It should not be a great issue to store the electricity. But better infrastructure and power transmission will be required. If battries become cheaper, it will also be posible for households to have their own indipendent power supply sytem.


Thermal is a thing of the past. Nuclear does not play any great role today, and is unlikely to play a significant role in future. It will be a mix of Wind, Solar and Hydro.

Basically install a lot of solar for use in day and pump the hydrostorage. Wind will be used to smooth the supply during evening and night and hydro will be used to blanance any demand shortage.

[Rishirishi]

Storage is NOT a problem. It is possible to pump up water in hydroelectric plants during oversupply and harvest it when ever required. Energy loss is acceptable.

Not all HE dams are geared up for that., however one can have "lake dams" in Arravallis and in 'hills' of Kumaun specifically acting as 'mass' storage in terms of GWs. In effect you need two lakes - one at a higher elevation and another at a lower elevation.

Capital costs are very very very high on the above. And in a high population density country like India., there are very few places.

Again what works in Amreeka, does not work in India.

The size of storage lakes do not need to be so large if you are going to store only 15 hours supply. Teri has 1000MW generating capacity. Becase it is anticipated that the lake will be drained over several months. It is fully possible to install 25 000 MWh to drain the lake in a singel evening and pump it all up next day. But capital investment in generation and power lines will be massive.

[disha]

^^ Environmental implications to drain the lakes completely twice over? You are better off damming a tidal basin.

You must know that nett pumped-storage hydroelectricity are net consumers of energy! They are profitable by generating and selling power at peak demand. Hence the profitability is in the narrow margin of off-peak vs. peak rates. And this narrow margin must also cover capital costs of setting up the necessary infrastructure.

But again you point to Teri as an example., but Teri is a very high dam and with inflows during monsoon and some more months as upper reaches of himalayas melt snow during summer causing a net positive impact in the sense that the pump up is not a complete cycle (can be half or even quarter cycle).

And all dams are not Teri. Note that Teri was first created as a irrigation, drinking water and HE dam and given its hight., pumped storage is being added as a add-on project. Creating a specialized pumped-energy HE will entail huge capital investment and that will actually throw the cost calculations out of the way.

Put it this way in a energy storage mix., pumped HE is part of a mix and not panacea.