Decentralised renewable energy may help to recover losses

Adoption of decentralised renewable electricity generation in place of loss making rural projects can aid DISCOMs in reducing their debt burden.

Dr. Chetan Singh Solanki, Professor, Department of Energy Science & Engineering, The Solar Man of India, in a discussion with EPR magazine mentions the essential aspects of Solar, that can make ways for the distribution sector to providing efficient and uninterrupted power supply.

Moving away from generation and focusing on supply. Your take?
I think it is great idea to focus on power supply service. Shifting partial or entire focus on supply service can bring real operational efficiencies. I believe focus on quality and cost-effectiveness of supply can also aid DISCOMs in improving their financial positions. In addition, it will reduce the redundant addition in generation capacities and result in focus on efficient and appropriate generation and transmission. Centralised generation may not be the best option in many situations.

According to PRAAPTI portal, there has been a rise in the outstanding dues to GENCOs by the DISCOMs. Would this move to focus on supply, will bring any relief to the debts?
I believe, yes! The focus on supply would enable DISCOMs to supply electricity efficiently and in more cost-effective manner. Rural electrification project through grid is one of the key reasons for this debt. Adoption of decentralised renewable electricity generation in place of loss making rural projects can bridge this gap. I also feel that as long as decisions are driven by politics, it will be difficult to make rational decisions.

What policy or tariff changes are you expecting to come under the UDAY 2.0 as it is supposedly aimed at improving operations?

For an efficient supply, what kind of infrastructure should be in place? How do you think power can reach extreme remote areas?
In the 150th birth anniversary celebration year of Mahatma Gandhi and following his ideals of ‘Gram Swaraj’, the country should focus on localised generation and supply. I call this ‘Energy Swaraj’. With today’s advancement in renewable energy technologies, particularly solar technologies, it is indeed possible to generate and consume electricity locally to meet demand of uninterrupted power supply. The adoption of Energy Swaraj, will not only provide the efficient and quality power to users, and most importantly, it will help in arresting climate change.

Why is solar rooftop the most untapped source?
Everybody, including the private players, as well as government is busy in taking low hanging fruits that is the large scale power plants. The private players get scale, and the government gets the numbers. However, the people are living in decentralised manner, the solar energy is available in decentralised manner and electricity needs are also in decentralised manner; therefore the best way to use solar energy is in rooftop applications. Also, the net metering policy implementation has not reached the ground level. Actually, it requires bottom up approach to tap the rooftop resource while so far there has been top down approach used in the field.

How did Gandhi Solar Yatra on 2nd October 2019 helped? What were major concerns for the yatra?
In today’s contradictory context, wherein, at one side we need to generate more and more energy, on the other side, we need to reduce the energy consumption to mitigate climate change, as, 80 per cent of total energy needs are fulfilled by using fossil fuels. I have undertaken ‘Gandhi Global Solar Yatra’ across the world, to every continent, to bring this sense to people, academicians as well as governments. I could convey and convince all those whom I met, but world is a big place, the momentum of current economic growth model is enormous. Therefore, my concern is that by the time people will understand this contradiction and adopt to right approach for energy generation and consumption, it will be far too late.

Dr. Chetan Singh Solanki, Professor, Department of Energy Science & Engineering