Diverse Science Diplomacy Takes: Clean Energy in India | National Science Policy Network - NSPN

good morning good afternoon good evening to everybody thank you so much for joining us for today's webinar this webinar is the second in a series of discussions that nspn which is National Science policy network has been hosting where we're looking at bringing in international perspectives to different Global issues the National Science policy network is an organization that provides training and programs for scientists from early career to later in their career who are interested in policy or in diplomacy and so it also provides opportunities for these scientists to engage in policy writing in advocacy in diplomacy working together in community among other opportunities that nspn provides in the first round of this series what we did was talk to um non-profit a non-profit entity we talked to somebody who was a PhD student and we talked to somebody who had started a business where they were using artificial intelligence in agriculture in Western Africa and so that video is on our YouTube channel which I'll provide a link for later on for anybody who's interested but for today I'd like to thank Aditi and Anastasia for all their working getting this panel put together I'm getting invitations sent out and putting questions together for our panelists um today's panel takes us to India where we'll be looking at India's um work in the clean energy transition um and our panelists will be discussing the work from different perspectives that they bring to to the table and providing a glimpse into where the country has been where it is right now and then the challenges and the opportunities that are available as it moves towards a cleaner energy future I'll pass it on now to our moderator Anastasia who's a data scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Lab and also assigns diplomacy Committee Member here at nspn thank you much ope as mentioned helped organize the event it's been such a good time working with you all to be able to host today's speakers on the topic of India's clean energy transition and clean energy has been Central in many of my projects at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory because I often analyze and help create data tools and processing Frameworks for clean energy projects like next Generation nuclear fuels and geothermals so I'm excited to engage with speakers and not just the Innovations of sustainable energy but also the economics and policy of it so I'm really curious to better lay out the energy landscape in India because India has surged as a solar superpower and there was this massive rollout of Renewables until Kobe lockdowns and so there seems to now be this call for greater investment or a larger political front to respond to still growing dependence on coal and fossil fuels and so today our speakers will bring the latest context on India's clean energy transition um it's a topic that was sparked by a collaboration between the science diplomacy committee and the diversity equity and inclusion committee at nsbn and whose events will be later made available on nsbn's YouTube channel so with that I'm eager to start by welcoming our speakers I'm thrilled to have you here today to share your perspectives and I will briefly introduce each speaker and then let them take the stage for their own introductions before diving into some questions so first we have kanchi Gupta who's a senior associate for the India program at climate Works Foundation where she's working to advance strategic thinking and Grant making with regard to India she works closely with regional Partners on highlighting climate mitigation opportunities in India such as in clean Transportation with a focus on electrification of small medium and heavy duty vehicles she also leads programmatic work on promoting just and Equitable zero emission mobility and she has a background in international relations and she has worked I think at a think tank in Delhi researching India as a regional power we also have here today Dr kartikia Singh who's the the director of the global Energy Futures initiative at the climate imperative Foundation where he manages the portfolio to support energy transition efforts around the world he does so by leveraging his extensive experience being in or engaging with Government research institutions intergovernmental organizations civil society and industries in the sustainable development sector he has traveled from the Arctic to the Antarctic exploring the challenges of energy geopolitics in a changing climate kartika has a background in ecology and sustainable development with a masters of engineering science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and his PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and diplomacy finally we have drew Warrior who was a research analyst at the Technologies for transition team at the Council on energy environment and water or cew and his work focuses primarily on energy storage and renewable energy Supply chains he has previously worked at the cew Center for Energy finance and worked with ortig India in the quality control and Supply Chain management of heavy equipment manufacturing at the council through track's key market and technological developments in energy storage and develops business models and policy recommendations to enable the creation of resilient responsive and responsible renewable energy Supply chains in India and the global South and so with that I want to warmly welcome you all and hand off introductions to each of you in the same order starting with kanchiputa thank you so much for that Anastasia so as was in my introduction I just want to start off by saying I'm representing myself all the views over here are mine not my organizations so I'll introduce myself in a little bit of my work and my priorities so as was in my introduction I in my past life I worked at the think tank in Delhi where I was researching India as a regional power so I did a lot of Open Source research and analyzes on the geopolitical economic and security Trends in southern West Asia I love writings I also wrote a lot of blogs opinion pieces and reports and I took up opportunities to do speech writing and talking points for uh the senior leadership at my organization and sometimes government officials and I also managed external collaborations and stakeholder engagement cyber Partnerships with stakeholders and expert voices and Academia civil society and government so this was my past life and my current life I work at a philanthropy where I work with multiple partners to advance climate goals in India in line with India's development objectives so what is this entail we have three broad goals one is to create an enabling environment for collaborations between all stakeholders so whether it is philanthropic institutions Academia think tanks expert voices public and private sector stakeholders to promote strategic thinking with the India the second is supporting institutions that are at the Forefront of providing scientific and data back research on decarbonization Pathways opportunities and scenarios in India which can be vital entry points for action and the third is supporting implementation of these priorities so one of the examples which was also in my bio is promoting Equitable and inclusive clean Mobility so primarily electrification and some of the projects that I'm working uh on are at the intersection of driving adoption ownership and productive use of clean EVS um also amongst women entrepreneurs in rural India and also looking at other opportunities like improving access to finance for Ev ownership I just want to end by saying why did I make this shift um so there are multiple reasons one was moving countries some personal developments but I think one key reason for me was that even though I love foreign policy I think I was beginning to get a little bit Restless around what was the uptake and the direct impact of my work um so I wanted to work on issues that directly affect people livelihoods and overall well-being so everything that I know about climate change energy and clean Technologies I've learned on the job and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be working in this sector and thank you so much for having me here thank you so much it's great to meet you and great to have you here today and now we'll hear from Dr kartikia Singh thanks so much for having me I'm karthikey um and it's it's a pleasure to be here I'm sort of thinking about my own um Reflections I guess I should also Echo what kanji said the views expressed here are my own not my institutions thanks for a reminder of that I think that's very important we all have our own sort of opinions uh beyond our institutions and ideas of course um I am an ecologist by training um that is something that I studied in college uh Wildlife Management very specifically um and I would say that the sort of inflection point um for me to sort of think about the intersections of um you know conservation and broader energy transition happened in a field experience in Kenya where uh you know the EU had provided financing for the Maasai Community to um to set up solar-powered electric fencing to Shield their livestock and crops from the damages that they can suffer from Wildlife that we're spilling beyond the ambasselli national park and I think that was a really interesting moment for me because there was so much human Wildlife conflict and I cared so deep care so deeply even still about the sort of imperative to protect Wild Spaces um and the ecologist in me that I think I realized that I needed to focus more on energy and human development needs so that there can be space for wildlife I think later in my career you know obviously that that shaped me and my my doctoral work my field work all sort of focused on energy access for rural areas which was uh continues to be a persistent challenge in many parts of the world but for a geography like India where I was born and where I have strong links um that was a a pronounced sort of problem as one large Market of largely unelectrified people which also has a lot of charismatic megafauna and and conservation needs um so that's kind of where my academic Journey ended up taking me was the sort of what factors affect the scaling up of off-grid Solar Technologies in particular because the communities that use them are often living in the margins of protected areas um but the and this probably speaks to um the experience of some of the folks in the National Science policy Network it was actually an ori's Fellowship during the the data analysis and writing phase of my dissertation that brought me to the U.S department of energy squarely into the international Affairs office where I had the privilege of helping manage the US India and U.S Pakistan bilateral energy portfolios and had basically a front row seat into what energy diplomacy looks like between the United States and two key Partners all in the same neighborhood and I think um and you know obviously I'd always been interested in in environmental diplomacy and diplomacy at large ended up going to a school of diplomacy after a school of environment but that I think sort of culminated for me kind of the area that I've been really interested in and in in my work I would say this the the stuff that I find really exciting is activating diplomacy networks to Aid in our Collective energy transition through the work of our partners um and activating that in different corners of the world because there are as we transition into this new industrial climate aligned economy um we need to think about new trade alliances and new ways of cooperation and globalization um and on the basis of these new types of Technologies so thanks for having me looking forward to the discussion yeah hi um great to hear from the two two of you can't change uh I think my I would say my story in this whole Space is a lot earlier than the both of you but I think the kind of motivations are quite similar in terms of why I came into the space and also reiterating just like country and karthika said the uh ideas I shared today or the thoughts I shared today are my own I'm not representing my institution but of course uh my institution has a lot of uh is a lot of the reason that I'm here and a lot of reason that the work that I do has you know reached the kind of people that I wanted to uh just a background on cew the council what we do is we try to impact sustainable development at scale with data integrated analysis and strategic Outreach and basically we look at it in terms of three broad areas one is Transformations where we try to transform the Indian economy the second is uh uh improving quality of life in terms of Indian citizens and then the third is looking at enablers in terms of what is needed to actually enable the two other Transformations and improvements in quality of life we have uh 200 plus multi-disciplinary team and we have offices in multiple States across India so we try and um so even though we're thinking based out of New Delhi we try and actually go down into uh with the states we go down to the State offices and we try and make change where it needs to happen so whether that's at the state level whether that's on ground so there's a lot of teams that work on ground as well um so my story with CW actually began with the Center for Energy Finance that's where I came in and of course my motivation there was um you know Finance being a very important part of enabling the energy transition and I had the opportunity to work on various aspects including manage charging uh manufacturing and then also some amount of thermal repurposing and cold repurposing but um what our team realized was that technology and Innovation which uh very often are treated as in India especially second fiddle where the assumption is we're going to import the technology and then deploy it what we realized is that's really where the change needs to happen and there's so much potential for India to become leader in terms of re Supply chains in terms of critical minerals and in terms of technology in at the global stage so what we have done is we've created a new practice and the name of the basically the team is Technologies for Transitions and we try to focus on these kind of aspects and um so that's really where my background is uh my backgrounds really in terms is I'm a mechanical engineer I work in manufacturing I have uh I've really developed that kind of an understanding looking at it from an re supply chain lens and uh I think that's where sometimes the discussion kind of stops where it's just about deployment and it's very useful to then start looking upstream and especially in global South countries in countries where the you know the let's say the technology is not so mature yet and where costs are quite low so I think that's really where I'm coming from and hopefully I can add to the discussion but I'm just looking I'm also quite looking forward to learning a lot from country and given their wide experience wonderful thank you so much Drew so much to everyone again who's joining us today I'm excited to hear about your work and perspectives on the clean energy transition in India so we're going to open up and dive into some questions and where I'm going to start is I'm going to more likely aim for five questions in this webinar with maybe two optional questions Depending on time and so I want to also say that I'm going to encourage a lot of discussion um I want you to feel like you can ask questions to other speakers and you can respond to each other if you feel inspired by what a speaker says so with that um I want to kind of launch this and start with my first question which is one that reminds me a lot of the large energy goals I hear at conferences and admission and strategy statements which will revolve around a nation's energy goals in particular India has several upcoming goals for its clean energy sector including reducing the carbon intensity of its economy by 45 percent by 2030 compared to its 2005 levels and meeting 50 percent of its energy requirements with renewable energy sources by 2030. I'm curious to discuss some of the opportunities these goals present for the public and private sector and the challenges that might be lurking as the nation Works to achieve them so to start off what are your thoughts on India's climate goals and I would like to direct this by going in reverse order starting with true sure thanks Anastasia so I'd say first word is ambitious and I think especially with the updated goals uh the ones that were announced recently uh I think we India is really trying to be in that top tier of countries in terms of actually uh creating change so what some of CW's work some of my colleagues the work they've done they've seen that 47 of reduction in carbon intensity of the economy is kind of possible and India's goals are already at that level um one of India's goals which isn't really in the NDC is to hit 500 gigawatt by 2013 of renewable energy and uh just as a reminder that's more than the current entire capacity of India's uh generation mix and so what we are trying to do is almost more than double is actually more than double the re capacity on the grid and not only that I think when you're talking about opportunities as you said solar is really the heart of the story so of course there are other Technologies and I hope we discuss those as well but if you look at the trends in the last few years it's really been solar and hopefully move we move on to hydro and win but solar as you know is uh quite a low uh capacity utilization factor and if it only generates a certain time so unless you have energy storage on the grid which will need to be grow you know produced and put out it you know at like scales which are much much bigger than anything that exists on the great today there's no way for that solar which is going to come in at as capacity to be able to actually you know work its way into Bringing Down the carbon intensity of thread so I think not only do we need to more than double the size of the capacity on the ground you also need to work on uh putting up energy storage and then of course looking into green hydrogen those Technologies because there are hard to pay industrial sectors so uh it's going to be a huge huge task for us and uh yeah I I think if if we pull it off I think that'll be really really good yeah infrastructure wise that's a massive goal um country what are your thoughts so thank you um I Echo a lot of what drugs said but I just want to like sort of zoom out the lens a little bit and say the first thing is the context when we talk about India's climate goals and I think it's important to consider the fact that India is now the world's fifth largest economy so it's jumped six positions in the last 10 years um half of the country's population which is like 650 million people are below the age of 25 so rapid industrialization is a priority in India the manufacturing sector needs to grow alongside the service sector economy India has rapidly growing energy needs um so there is a very large development mandate um you know there is a need to create jobs there's a need to lift people out of poverty and guarantee an improved quality of life for 1.4 billion citizens so I think we need to have that as a context whenever we talk about and there's climate goals and where we are the second as drove said is ambition so you know 2022 was a hard year 20.22

uh was a hard year for many countries coming out of covert um and I know we're going to talk a little bit more about that later but it was an especially hard year for India and there's a lot of still uh social and economic effects that are being felt but uh with cop 26 there was some good ambitious commitments following that there were the updated ndcs in 22 Endeavors which is also known as a panchamber at the five nectares there's a net zero Target by 2070 and scale commitments for renewable energy deployment and Emissions reductions so I think there is a national policy framework which kind of plays a very strong foundation for achieving the ndc's and exceeding the ndcs potentially but within this there is also the challenge of adapting to climate change and the imperative imperative of building resilience so I think in 2022 there was a very devastating heat wave that had a massive impact across the country there were concerns around food security uh wheat production plunged there was a power crisis with spikes in demand especially related to cooling so these will only grow as extreme weather events become more common so I think this concern needs to be weaved in when we talk about overarching climate goals uh and also underscores the importance of accelerating um clean energy transition I think the third um which is mentioned a lot less is also the role that India plays in terms of the international conversation around climate change um India has I think played a bit of a role in providing platforms and solutions for other countries in the global South India has been an advocate for low carbon transitions in the global South countries which balance emissions reductions with development it's also been a leading voice in terms of uh mobilizing green Finance so I think this is something that needs to be considered when we talk about India's overall climate action um I think one example of that is the international solar Alliance which is kind of a venue for deploying infrastructure technology and finance to other countries India extends lines of credits to uh for solar and clean energy projects and emerging economies in terms of uh resilience there's the Coalition for disaster resilient infrastructure I think a new initiative is the life mission the lifestyles for environment Mission though a lot of it needs to be unpacked but it's kind of like encouraging behavioral change at the Civil Society public sector and private sector levels so it can sort of be more of a unifying call for Action so I think India continues to be a leading voice in the global South and I think it can create a template for low carbon economic growth for emerging economies so something to be considered I'll stop them thank you no that's great you really stratify all the sectors and how they work together with their priorities um carticay what are your thoughts well um yeah talk about layering on uh to layers that were added by kanji um uh I guess I can reflect back to you know when India was starting down this track um you know the prime minister's Council on climate change that I think came about sometime around 2007 or slightly prior and thinking through where we were technologically at that time and um also the targets the government had set for things like the national solar Mission they were you know looking back now of course seemed quite anemic at that time when Solar Technologies were you know more cost prohibitive um maybe seemed ambitious and just sort of thinking through how quickly things changed not only from a cost competitiveness of clean energy but also how Market signals also helped drive that right from different corners of the world and where manufacturing really took off um east of India and how that you know 20 gigawatt initial Target was ratcheted up to be 100 gigawatts and with some sort of uh ambitious end date and what we see now in terms of ratcheting it ratcheting it up even more and um and I think that more important than and you may ask this question at some point about you know whether or not the target is has been met or what we feel about it but I think that shooting for the moon and breaking through a ceiling at least uh is a very critical piece of the puzzle here in terms of having ambition and for that um I think there's a lot to be said about uh the targets the country setting I think there is a geopolitical angle to this as kanchi was alluding to um you know there's the solar Alliance of course there's the one world one Sun one world one grid effort which sort of aims to either harness India's experience in a in unifying its national grid for the first time uh ever uh you know linking the various different Regional grids and the North and South interconnect and thinking through what it means to have greater interconnection in the south Asia region and Beyond into asean and really leverage the cheapest greenest electron from one place to another for a country that is you know heavily import dependent on fuel oils but sits atop uh you know considerable coal reserves which you know it must use uh for energy security reasons but at its own Peril right in terms of the heat wave that was referred to or um you know the the food security and other impacts that this may have a change in climate we'll have on India's economy and growth ambition so it's walking a tight rope I would say and I think in order to fully sort of lean in to the energy transition and its energy targets it really requires um making sure that while the targets are set that the institutions and the players that are within India are aligned right I mean you have multiple Ministries that are at the helm of um answering uh or perhaps jockeying for space in who is managing uh the energy transition everything from a Ministry of power to a Ministry of non-renewable energy to a separate Ministry that looks at hydropower um to you know other Indus other Ministries tests at looking at Electric Mobility and now green hydrogen and um so I think there's a lot uh and I haven't even scratched the surface of Center versus State Dynamics and how this plays out you can set a bold Vision at the national level but really the implementation is at the state level and Indian states must be brought on board to meet that ambitious Vision so I think that institutional alignment matters and I think from a science and policy perspective um it's critical as I've seen it play out at the state level in India as to which states are actually succeeding leading or lagging um in driving India's energy ambition and the role that Innovation can even play in not just passively administering an energy trans position but really being drivers of it and and owning the value chain which I think is seen as a critical piece of the puzzle post the pandemic the last thing that I think I should mention is that other institutions that matter those that are locked into the fossil fuel value chain and I think you know those need to be brought along in the process these targets should be uh met in part and seen as part and parcel of the transition of these institutions um so that they can continue to be economic drivers of India's um uh future not just sort of be left behind as we see so many conversations on just transition um happening uh where where we didn't account for you know those in the coal value chain to be brought along I think there's a critical moment and a window here to bring those entities along as these targets are attempting to be met versus Central Dynamics and touched upon you know the infrastructure and the adaptability question and so maybe this will this question might give an opportunity to kind of scale back um after we heard so much about what's happening right now and what have been the initiatives um and so this question might give an opportunity to maybe share some energy history we've really been talking about India's trajectory but given how close the dates are for some of these goals you know 20 30 is about seven years away now um what are your observations about how far India has come since it set these goals at the Paris agreement in 2015. could you share more about kind of the history you've seen and um I'll start with kanji and then Carter K and then Drew thanks so much Anastasia so I'll say I think you know a lot of the key um developments or the key progress points have been mentioned but I'll just sort of put them all together that's you know the volume and pace of solar and wind construction movement in the EV space uh focus on manufacturing Renewables components um early movement on clean Technologies like green hydrogen there is a battery manufacturing Mission uncooling India just ratified the Kigali Amendment so I think these are kind of like the big sort of key um progress points that we've seen in the last few years the second thing I'll say is that National policy efforts that have sort of galvanized the private sector I think they continue to be um I think they've been key drivers of climate action in India and will continue to be critical as we go forward um so you know these targets are kind of attracted foreign and domestic investments in the sector they've sort of laid the groundwork for India to emerge as a solar manufacturing Hub that was the pli scheme that was introduced in 2021 which provided incentives for setting up solar module plants in India as well as for Ev Manufacturing and this is made manufacturing more cost competitive I think some of the things that cut again through also alluded to earlier um and so is there a greater Financial incentives and support you know India can be a very big player in diversifying Supply chains globally and I think there are some examples of these like FDR investment in the renewable sector I think was um accumulative of over 10 billion dollars between 2015 and 2022 and I think India's uh module manufacturing capacity has doubled between uh 22 and 23 thanks to the pli scheme so India could actually become self-sufficient in solar module Manufacturing in the next coming years I think we've seen similar advances in the mobility sector there's been policy and the private sector is followed but I'll just make one additional point which is on subnational action so I think National Action has to be supplemented by the states and there are some efforts in this um I think over 20 states have finalized or notified EV policies you know the states like Karnataka and Gujarat which have sort of been leading in overall preparedness and commitment to the transition to clean electricity Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu have always been at the Front Runners of adding renewable energy capacity Tamil Nadu has set up a governing Council on climate and a green climate company so there are several examples but I think the point I want to make is states are going to be at the Forefront of climate action in India and they're going to be critical to meeting these goals and they need to be supported through capacity building and access to funding in the future I'll stop them no I think that's great and cardica yeah I'm really curious to hear about then what you would have to say about the States versus Central Dynamics yeah I mean I think as with a place like the US right the states can really be the Laboratories of innovation um and really um sent forth um more sort of um can can provide a push to the center in terms of what's possible and and I think you know going back a little bit to when the first electric vehicle and Battery uh policy was released by Karnataka and I remember there was a flurry I was living in DC even at the time and just thinking about um you know trying to get a handle on what this policy says and there was just this photocopied uh version of the document that somebody had put up online um after there were lots of calls to kind of look at it closely um it was a really it was a first mover and I think it's it doesn't surprise me because it is a state where India's Silicon Valley lies there's a lot of tech Innovation happening there that is the place where India was had a startup actually I wouldn't even call it a startup but by the time I engaged with it but a firm that was manufacturing electric vehicles prior to Tesla even being on the scene and actually exporting to some 60 plus odd countries around the world this was a company called rava started by Chetan Manny and Co and and so I think they had the ability and this is by the way in 2000 probably five when they had probably launched um and I so that that particular policy actually set the tone I think not just for what um you know was needed in terms of Electric Mobility uh policy in the state but what again was needed in terms of driving The Innovation uh in Electric Mobility policy and energy storage technology policy because they uh they have in there the need for a battery uh Innovation Center uh and an r d facility and I think that's where um you really again Beyond just sort of manufacturing or sourcing components and assembling and deploying um you sort of start to build the blocks of the actual value chain more fundamentally and I think that that's anyway their policy really kind of kick-started all the EV policies uh across the country and as country mentioned I think we're up to 20 States now at one point when I was trying back into several years ago it was only seven or eight so you can see how the progress has been made um I think more interesting um you know is what we see uh in terms of the ability of certain States uh renewable energy agencies in leading in terms of structuring projects for utility scale projects and I think this is where the central Indian state of madhya Pradesh really kind of um was leading in terms of structuring with creative international finance mechanisms and tools and the resources they had in a reverse auctioning process to really get solar prices to be Rock Bottom for a large utility scale solar project and that kind of again set the tone for how India could achieve its large solar and perhaps wind Ambitions um and so that's why I think the center versus State Dynamic is an interesting one to watch beyond just being blessed in sun or wind it's really about the um the the institutions at the state level and and who they are managed by and the political will to really you know give that flexibility and and drive the innovation in in the business models and in thinking through long-term um uh you know economic growth of uh of capturing this industry so um that's what I would say about um you know the center versus State Dynamic the only other thing I want to add here in terms of looking back at the history is in the last I think probably by 2019 um the government of India in collaboration with the states managed to successfully complete a long-standing vision I think since India's independence which was to Electrify every single home uh by extending wires and poles out to every single Hamlet and home and where these communities were really remote to have them have off-grid uh systems and this is very interesting to me because obviously my PhD was looking at all the Innovations in the firms that were coming up in the absence of a grid Network a unified grid Network and I think this presents a tremendous opportunity to uh leverage the the the increased demand the latent demand for electrons uh and the need for them to be as cheap and as clean as possible uh into really driving and being a capture of India's sort of um renewable energy Ambitions I think that's something that can't be divorced from this everywhere we talk about decarbonization electrification and electrifying everything matters um so I think it's important to reflect on the fact that India did manage to do this now of course reliability and quality of Power are the next you know things to tackle through these wires uh but it's certainly a tremendous business opportunity and has varying on on the sort of renewable energy plans and the energy demand of the country great yeah diversification Innovation electrification what are your thoughts through yeah I think I think one of the most important points which is this interstate Dynamic has been covered by country and Healthcare at length um I think if we go back to 2015 and even if you look at the decade has just passed the whole story around um you know the re let's say the Ari revolution in India was powered by the solar energy corporation of India seki and the whole model of being able to de-risk these um these Investments to be able to say that the center would be able to uh de-riskate and allow states to then purchase it when they need to and that's that's really what kind of uh catalyzed especially the solar revolution in the last few years um what what we found though was that um you know wind for example there were issues with the way that uh that that there has been a bit of difficulty in uh allowing wind to grow at the same rate and so I think what has happened in the last seven years has been this um is that I think what we've done is we've gone from let's say an Mason Market to a somewhat mature market and uh now I think the question comes how do these institutions change so uh what's some really exciting developments in the last few years is the realization like I said before about the need for energy storage so uh organizations like ntpc the national thermal bar I don't think the national thermal Park operation anymore they're just ntpc so they're the big uh generation company of India they've put out some tenders for energy storage and they're trying to what they're trying to do is figure out how to integrate all this re that's come on board in the last few years and also the re that's going to come up in the next few years and so you have these really interesting uh New Market mechanisms which have started popping up in the last few years which may not have existed earlier the other thing is of course states are taking interest so one uh I think Gujarat for example had this really um novel tender for uh energy storage you have States like uh Telangana and Andhra Pradesh that are really really pushing for bump title I think that's where they're focusing and they're trying to uh incentivize a lot of Developers greenco for example who might be wanting to come in and you know develop these Technologies in India so I think all of this has started happening uh but just just so we are you know on the same page uh in the last year 16 gigawatt uh of re was added between 21 and 22. the year before that is about 12 gigawatt uh in the next you know decade we might be 300 gigawatt so let's say this is a start in terms of how our journey is it's a good start but I think we'll need to accelerate and then the second point is I think coming back to what kanchi was saying what uh kasuke was saying right about homegrown and indigenization of these Supply chains so I think that's something uh that's a really interesting development the pli schemes not just for Batteries but for solar modules and there's interest in uh looking at plis for other Technologies there's even um tlis for example for automotive where there's a separate focus on EVs and uh also for automotive components so I think the governments really realize that uh Manufacturing in India is going to be a huge part of the whole aspect of you know uh building out this huge huge re let's say ecosystem that will have to be built I think in the last few years a lot of these changes have happened and uh I think finally coming back to you know again States right so discounts discounts have really taken cognizance of this and also again of the fact that they have this kind of variable re on their grid so be it because of solar rooftop and their policies where again they've kind of gone from net metering to gross metering so this comms have looked at that but also I think they're looking to explore more options to actually integrate this kind of renewable energy so that's also something that's happened over the past few years where discounts have started looking into how they can integrate uh renewable energy into the grid so that might even be something as simple as setting up energy storage but also looking at Mana charging options vehicle to grid options there's a lot of Pilots happening on the ground today in terms of looking at these uh you know technological solutions and also of course this will also require a lot of policy changes which again there's more movement but let's say we just have the start of this new of the new decade of changes in yeah so that's basically my viewings great yeah thank you it's it's really fascinating to hear about these new market mechanisms you walk through um it seems like Renewables can be really reactive um but I want to jump into maybe some of the contradictions or uncertainties that can come along with that transition to clean energy and so um kind of notably we're aware that there's this long-standing research on the variable nature of renewable energy from its storage to its urine year installations however there is also growing you know many observations on the increasing volatility with fossil fuels for example on revenue and yet fossil fuels continue to grow in India could you break down the uncertainties of fossil fuels compared to clean energy that you've observed in your line of work and I'll direct this question back to Drew and then conscience got him so um I think once one place where it's so I I would say first of all India is a growing economy and there's no way that we're going to uh separate these two we're not going to be able to say that fossil fuels or re they're both going to be an important part of the economy for a while uh I think that's quite clear in the way that uh these conversations are structured but uh let's I think there are a few examples where I think these questions really come about so one of them is natural gas and uh Pico plants so uh given the the way in which the Dynamics in terms of the cost of peakers and natural gas have changed in India there might be a huge uh you know argument for solar Plus Storage as an option to be able to uh take care of some of the speaking load or even to be able to provide ancillary services so in that case I think there is an Apples to Apples comparison I don't think it's always Apples to Apples to be able to compare fossil fuels to re uh but I think what's most important is that uh we we look at you know where the cost competitiveness exists and we ensure that the government is aware of it so I think for example there's this very useful tender that's just come out uh Maharashtra state had this tender where they are looking at solar storage and they're looking at the times when solar is being used and then times the solar is not being used I mean sorry time that's always being generated in a Time solar is not being generated and that and what they've discussed covered was I think around 10 cents per kilowatt hour so around eight to nine rupees for the non-uh solar times which is quite uh similar to the lower end of national gas in terms of cost so I think in those kind of cases when you realize that these kind of options re options can displace some amount of fossil fuels that might be an argument but I think when it comes to domestic coal and domestic resources I think that's much more a political issue and I think that's not something you can compare apples to apples with the the way that we're looking at the risks with re yeah that's my right kanji what are your thoughts on some of the contradictions maybe you've come across um yeah I think I interpret this question a little bit differently and I'm just kind of looking at the comparisons in terms of phasing out the fossil fuels and um you know deploying more Clean Energy Technologies I mean I think we all know that India is quite heavily import dependent I think in Imports like 80 of its fossil fuel requirements so there is a very big case for energy security to be made in India and I think it's part of India's self-reliant mission to make India energy Independent by 2047. uh the second point is demand in India is going to go up something I said earlier as well Empower about Eightfold in the auto sector about threefold in the steel sector by Eightfold by 2050 so something to be considered for sure but as we think about transitioning to clean Technologies there are there deployment hinges on a couple of developments as we've spoken about that is um the increase in the deployment of solar and wind electrolyzers for green hydrogen and batteries for storage and EVS so there are some challenges here one is around the availability and Supply security of critical minerals and I think one of the discussions we've been having is the lithium find in India but there are a lot of uncertainties there in terms of how much of it is proved reserves what are the concerns around security responsible mining Etc that need to be figured out but there are international strategic Partnerships that can be developed to secure reserves India can build recycling capacities as it is already doing I think the second consideration is uh the tax impacts from the loss of fossil fuel Revenue so fossil fuel taxes and duties they contribute very significantly to State and central government revenues I think it's about 12 percent of uh government revenue but I think so as we phase out for security consumption as we uh deploy more Clean Energy Technologies and the Indian economy is growing so there are opportunities to offset this loss in the future and of course there are other considerations like the feasibility of new technologies like hydrogen grid reliability and securing Supply chains even as India is ramping up its own manufacturing capabilities so I'll just give one example of the transportation sector which I think is at the intersection of these uncertainties but at the same time is ripe for mitigating fossil fuel insecurity and meter and clean energy goals and I'm specifically going to quote some numbers from lbnl research which I'm happy to share later in the chat so if you look at battery electric trucks um specifically looking at Freight so battery electric trucks can have a lower total cost of ownership compared to diesel trucks diesel trucks currently consume 57 of petroleum that is used for transportation in India the majority of which is imported so electric trucks can definitely take advantage of the increase in renewable and domestically produced power and as India is adding more renewable energy to the grid um there are also of course climate and pollution benefits I'll stop that okay great thank you no I think it's super informative to have these kind of facts listed um otherwise we kind of lose track of where we are in this transition and so chronically what are your thoughts on the phase out and fossil fuels and maybe the contradictions you come across um yeah I mean the contradictions are such right I mean at the fundamental level you have a country that the only fuel that it has um the only Fuel stock that it that it has any sort of control over is coal um and um it has to import as kanji pointed out you know uh oil and gas it actually has a pretty thriving sort of petrochemicals uh processing industry um but um you know at the at the end of the day um if it is um put in a corner of tight energy security needs um the thing that India knows how to do is leverage its coal resources um and I think that that's why the transition and and the contradiction right I mean the the need to act on climate for its own sort of stability and climate security food security and you know all the sort of productivity impact that can come into play and natural disasters that a country like India would suffer from as a changing climate the need to sort of also be energy secure all of these what we're seeing is we're seeing the tension uh between the need to be energy secure at a time of great Global uh energy and security driven by uh the war in uh in Europe um and um and the need to sort of really act on climate but yet not you know catching up in terms of owning as much of that value chain as possible and this is where it's been interesting to see how much the production linked incentives and other things that have been put in place can really actually get India in a position where it is where it is creating so much more of the technology that it needs for its electricity needs and electrifying as much as it can to buffer its population from the need to import um oil and gas at the very least now I mean I think the more difficult thing that will uh that we'll need to it will need to tackle is how it manages and navigates the phase down of coal which it does sit on considerable reserves of but as we've seen um you know and I think driven in part by the fact that so much of the country is now electrified and there's demand and there's heat waves that the energy demand is there and even the coal isn't providing energy Security in a way that I think one would expect it to and that's obviously there's a lag in terms of the ability of the infrastructure to keep up the digging up of the stone and uh you know having it be transported across the country to power plants all of that sort of makes it difficult to keep up with a rapidly changing climate and an energy system that can navigate it so I think what we're in this you know in the eye of the energy transition storm for India as I like to say um where there is this you know what what how much longer will there be uh this need to hold on to Coal obviously for some time longer um but as it builds out the Energy System of the future and leverages it sort of electrified networks how much more can the Indian rupee be spent on Indians producing uh the Technologies the future is what we're doing and this is where I think it's so critical um for the coal India's for the ntpcs for the bhel which is the engineering firm that produces power generation uh infrastructure for Indian oil for all of them to become because they're state-owned Enterprises and by proxy therefore the government and drive Revenue um that the state can benefit from for them to own a piece of the energy transition rather than just leaving it up to the private sector obviously the private sector has a huge role to play but there are cash reserves that some of these firms are sitting on and what we're starting to see slowly is that um you know coal India is entering into the business of uh you know manufacturing ignots and Wafers and solar PV module uh manufacturing facilities and that's good um you know with the discovery of um of the lithium Reserve up in the north of India um I think there's a lot of question as to how long it'll take to really deserve to develop um develop these resources that have been discovered and who should do it and I think that this is where the technical expertise of a of a large conglomerate like coal India that has mining expertise it would be wise for them to sort of think about their business transition plan because that's that's the tension right is how do you how do these profit making fossil fuel companies really continue to exist and and be a part of the transition moving forward and that's it's a rocky period uh and that's why I think it's it's difficult to parse out you know what's exactly happening where language and the international arena is pro-clean but at the same time uh defensive uh and it's rightly defensive because of uh it's the only resource that India has um but I do see a future in which these institutions are part of it and perhaps transformed thank you card iff all of you sort of touched on it um we have one more potential question that we could ask because we've all kind of talked about it tangentially you know some of the destabilizing events with covid and the Russia Ukraine war but I'll take a pause and just offer the opportunity for audience members uh if they want to send in some questions and chat uh that we could run through or if you want to go ahead and ask directly um otherwise I'll ask one last question for any quick thoughts and then I'll lead it off or open to close out the event okay so as people are thinking of their thoughts I'll just ask the question and I'll leave it open for anyone who wants to answer um we've all been hearing about kind of how covid has kind of have stalled a lot of the installments and developments of solar and India and now we've been met with the Russian Ukraine war how has this these Global events affected India's clean energy goals and what are some steps the government and Industry have taken to keep the country on track to achieve these goals it's interesting because you know we often hear about uh at least the minings often hear about Western Europe you know suffering but I'm curious to ask if anyone wants to jump in and talk about what is India's position um how has it been taking it just jump in briefly I mean I I followed this closely you know post pandemic um uh and also because I've got to jump off in two minutes um but I mean I think the the initial sort of supply chain shocks um combined with sort of the um the the the content requirements and the taxation of certain components of uh the clean energy value chain did have like a combined impact on um the prices uh at which certain auctions were won by firms to develop projects and the delays that they were facing and then sort of missing out on the window of what they thought they could promise and I think that that did have an impact on the the the the the growth of the projected um utility scale projects in particular uh now I think there's facts and figures that my colleagues here probably uh could speak to a lot more uh but I think you know just with every country since then there's been this sort of renewed focus on trying to reassure or onshore for as much of the supply chain as possible and I think this is where some of the incentives that have really come into place uh and and the firms have really moved on and delivering on the sort of production linked incentives in particular really will get India to a place where it will be producing a lot more of the world solar um you know by 2026 according to one particular research that just came out um so I think and then the war right I mean uh I think all the sort of 20 States having electric vehicle policies bodes well because I don't think that India can ride the shocks of uh you know a global oil and gas market for its large population that is so price sensitive and where it becomes a political hassle at every point to see you know whether or not we're going to have subsidies or taking them away um and so I think those are just things to be be mindful of and that I think has been a tightrope to walk and I think the electrification agenda and the supply chain uh onshoring is part of the plan of action um with that I'm going to stop speaking and thank you once again no wonderful wonderful to respect everyone's time um I'll just you know thank you again and um I'll hand it off to ope to close out the events yeah thank you very much everybody for joining us today I don't know and if I'm country or um drove had a lot any last um thoughts or wanted to see anything before it closes out but okay so I'll close this out then um I just wanted to again thank you all for coming and um giving us this um overview of what India has been through and what is happening right now um with the clean energy transition really appreciate your time and your thoughts um I'd like to finish us up with some announcements um real quick if everybody can see my slides now um yes okay so first off we have our um Eastern Hub that's going to be having a conversation with the NIH office of science policy Nick um tomorrow between 3 and 4 pm eastern time and so um that's an opportunity for you to learn about science policy um on the health side of things in the US um and then again on Thursday next week um depend the science diplomacy committee as well is having a pandemic diplomacy event where they're exploring the success of covid-19 efforts with a journalist a science officer at the UK science Innovation Network and a professor at the Michigan State Institute for Global health and then finally there's another event next week um on Thursday April 27th with um the illustrator animator and designer for Scientific American um George retzsec which is also being which is being hosted by the science communication committee and so if you're interested in any of these please be sure to go on our website and get more information on how to register um again with that I'd say thank you to everybody who's who attended this meeting and thank you very much to kanji and to um to Drew for for coming by and sharing your knowledge with us and yeah have a great day everybody thank you so much for having us bye-bye thank you

2023-04-17 03:46

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