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A Vision for India’s Clean Energy Infrastructure
Tuesday was a beautiful day. At last united with the final two of our three Reva companions, in Bangalore, Mellow Yellow, Jungle Fury and Revolution, we made our way to Ananthpur, a city in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, en route to Hyderabad.
In a teetering brightly coloured line of three, we drove out of the city on to the wide open road. Towering office blocks and flats turning to townships, trees and rocky outcrops as we made our way into the countryside.
The scenery was stunning; and the fresh air, glimmering pools of water and fields of vines with low hanging grapes stirred thoughts of the importance of natural resources, and of shifting towards an economy that values and supports these precious ecological systems. As we took this journey, it seemed one such opportunity was shiningly evident.
What would it be like if every gas station and petrol pump across India became a clean energy charging point for electric cars, spaced along the highways as they are with near perfect distancing to support long distance transit?
Electric cars, even running off fossil fuelled grid power in India are 20% more efficient than petrol or diesel fuelled cars, but imagine these electronic watering holes ultimately empanelled by solar, surrounded by wind farms or supplying biofuels sourced from sustainable suppliers close by. Who knows what future technologies might join the growing tool kit of innovative clean energy solutions too.
We stopped at an Indian Oil gas station to recharge along the way in Somandepally, thanks to the kindness and generosity of the owner, and this was echoed by his words;
'This journey', he said, 'is something that I feel is greatly important and needs to be supported. I could see this becoming a function of refuelling stations in the future, to become electric car charging points.'
Not only does this journey highlight the great clean technology innovations that India is developing, but also the huge gaps that need to be bridged in order to allow such technologies to truly fly. How can this be done?
Deepak, one of Reva's Engineers had the following thoughts on this question; 'All the major Indian fuel companies, like Indian oil, BP, Reliance and HP should take a big step towards providing these charging facilities. The petrol pump holders themselves are the retailers not the wholesalers. These are the wholesalers. If they mandate it, the retails will provide it.
At the same time, they need to tie up with new energy generation and storage companies, such as Suzlon, Vesta, and numerous other clean energy entrepreneurs such as APC, Kotak Urja, TATA BP Solar, CleanStar, and Gober gas producers, and move into new clean energy markets to make the next shift. Electric vehicles are a small business right now, but in 10 years it will be booming. Five years ago, there were 5000 electric vehicles on Indian Roads, today there are 5 million'.
Deepak also spoke about the fact that the government could take a big step, putting pre-paid charging stations allied with shopping centres, and multiple parking sites where 240V pylons are accessible.
If India's rapidly expanding and soon to be (we hope) upgraded power grid became 'smarter' and more efficient, as is already being planned via the Ministry of Power's innovative APDRPv2, to enable the influx of clean energy and decentralised supplies on to India's main grid, we would surely have come a long way towards this opportunity?
The newly established National Climate Change Action Plan missions on Solar Energy and Enhanced Energy Efficiency could perhaps also look into how such clean energy transport systems could be developed and decentralised further, catalysing this shift. Project Better Place certainly demonstrated this possibility at a smaller scale in Israel.
At a time of fluctuating oil prices and energy security concerns, and with the clean tech sector being one of the few economic markets still growing at this time of financial crisis, this is surely an exciting solution upon which to hedge our bets and pool our national innovation towards.
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its realy good
Hello, I found your blog from
This very technology also
Excellent post thank you very
Well, this is a very valuable
Thanks for sharing this
Good work! Your post/article
Would be the day..
..when I will consider Reva as my ONLY car. For rural pleasure driving, city slicking and highway cruising.
Good stuff, Anna.
Keep it coming guys. Am reading.
renewables integration
One of the problems with integrating renewables into national grid systems is their intermittency. This has lead many skeptics to badmouth technologies such as wind power, since they supposedly need expensive backup to ensure system reliability when the wind doesn't blow. Although this is not true, it is a reason why developed countries may not allocate much capacity credit to intermittent renewable generation, thereby reducing their ability to displace traditional fossil based power.
It occurs to me that in this regard, India's poor grid reliability may act in favour of intermittent renewables since the 'accepted' grid performance is below that of developed countries. So, while India's grid system is still inefficient and unreliable, maybe the opportunity should be taken to replace as much old capacity as possible with technologies such as wind, so that they can contribute as much as possible to meeting India's power demand.
Intermittent renewables and a collaborative opportunity
I think this is a really good point, and one that absolutely needs to be raised. I'm sure it is true that 'Developed' nations see less value in these intermittent sources of energy, but whilst India is still developing its power infrastructure, expanding its capacity, and seriously upgrading its power grid through the APDRPv2 plan, the timing is absolutely right to utilise this new and dynamic energy base - an opportunity that India has recognised, particularly in some progressive states, as well as in it's National Action Plan.
With the smart grid technology that exists today, these intermittent loads across a grid can be managed so as to maintain a constant flow of energy dynamically across the grid. This is a great example of how India could leapfrog developed countries in its development of infrastructure (before it is locked in to a completely high carbon model), and assure a far cleaner more decentralised form of energy infrastructure moving forward.
This very technology also offers a great opportunity for international collaboration on climate change and technology flow - so relevant to the international negotiations right now I feel. Just as India has developed trail-blazing technologies such as the Reva, which is now being exported to countries across Europe, the smart grid developments coming out of Silicon Valley as well as the Far East need to be shared here, along with the capacity to operate them. They could be utilised so well here! I hope that these opportunities and so many more will continue to be recognised and nurtured for the immense role they have to play for humanity....
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