To keep sun shining on renewable power

To keep sun shining on renewable power

There is marked slowdown in solar power capacity addition nationally and the policy regime seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Several states have made solar power costlier for open access consumers. Renewable energy (RE) projects face a new tax, in Rajasthan, for instance. And tariffs are going up on solar cells, modules, inverters and equipment.

The way ahead is to policy-induce better integration of RE with the national grid, rev up flexibility in conventional power supply and boost realisation by power distribution companies (discoms) by doing away with gross, open-ended giveaways.

Subsidies, if any, need to be budgeted and provided as direct benefit transfers. We do need to fast-forward RE power for stepped-up energy and environmental security: the current solar power capacity is hardly 40% of the 100 GW target set for 2022. But the resources required for grid integration of RE can no longer be glossed over. Solar or wind power is variable and intermittent. Utility-scale energy storage remains much too costly. Hence the need to back down thermal plants and pay them for making their capacity available. Hydroelectric generation must act as a quick standby, and have adequate infrastructure in place for evacuating the power.

All this calls for large resources and modern systems, such as smart grids and efficient, quick-starting thermal plants. Yet, we seem to have institutionalised reckless giveaways and, concurrently, steep cross-subsidies, with the result that the moribund finances of discoms hugely affect the fiscal position of the concerned states. Our per-capita power consumption remains low, barely a third of the global average. Without the political courage needed to make people pay for the power they consume, a robust power sector is a dream.