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Need to Redo the Draft National Energy Policy
NITI Aayog’s Draft National Energy Policy has numerous suggestions to make but has not underlined those of critical importance. In recent years, the cost of solar and wind energy has fallen dramatically. The focus on peak oil supply has been replaced by peak oil demand. The end of the coal era has already begun. DNEP’s energy mix does not reflect these developments. Hence, NITI Aayog should redo its draft energy policy with a well-developed road map.
NITI Aayog’s Draft National Energy Policy (DNEP), which was finally unveiled in June for public comments, has some ambitious objectives, such as universal access to electricity on a 24/7 basis and clean cooking fuel for all, and some excellent recommendations to promote renewables and tackle energy poverty (GoI 2017). Notwithstanding this, it should redo the DNEP for reasons discussed in this article, and not simply tweak it. Otherwise, we would miss a golden opportunity to prepare India for the transition from the fossil fuel era to one of renewables.
The DNEP presents two scenarios, business-as-usual (BAU) and Ambitious. According to the DNEP, renewables and clean energy will meet only 8.9% of commercial energy needs in the BAU scenario in 2040 and 13.4% under the Ambitious scenario (Table 1). Annual energy growth rates for these two cases are between 3.4% and 4.2%.
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