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Madhavan Nampoothiri, Principal Consultant at EAI was invited to be a part of the one day seminar on ‘Sustainable Energy for Economic Development’ conducted by the Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The distinguished guests on the occasion included
- Mr. Natham R. Viswanathan, honorable Minister of Electricity, Govt of Tamilnadu.
- Mr. Ramesh Kumar Khanna IAS, honorable Secretary (Energy), Govt. of Tamilnadu
- Mr. Hans Raj Verma IAS, Chairman, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board
Madhavan notes the following policy initiatives from the seminar.
- TNEB, power ministry taking big steps to improve power situation in TN
- Separate policy on renewable energy devised
- Solar policy being framed. Already approval for a 50 MW project under PPP Mode
- Tamil Nadu already has 47% of total wind installations in the country
Eminent speakers on the occasion highlighted several critical issues to be addressed by the administration.
- TNEB is in terrible financial shape
- Subsidies wrecking havoc with TNEB finances
- Tariff structure should be made better. Irrational subsidies should be phased out.
- Subsidies to be given based on pure need. For eg. Farmers who plant cash crops and make huge profits need not be given subsidized power. Subsidies to be given to farmers who really need it and also for those who plant food crops.
- ATC (Aggregate Technical and Commercial) losses for TN in 2009-10 was estimated to be 19.3%. However experts feel that it could be significantly higher(some states like Maharastra has ATC losses of close to 50%)
- The current focus is mainly on supply side management of power situation (increasing power generation capacity). Demand side management (optimizing power consumption) should also be given equal importance.
- Need for implementing mandatory energy audits.
- Energy efficiency is a low hanging fruit
- Replacement of old inefficient pumps, motors should be accelerated
- Many households use dual metering to reduce their electricity bill without reducing their power consumption. This needs to be abolished
- Smart Grid as a tool to optimize power usage, but there are way too many challenges for the adoption of smart grid. It could become a reality only after about 10 years
-However, smart metering can be increased.
- Comprehensive policy framework needs to be devised for smart grids.
Natham Vishwanathan, honorable Minister of Electricity in the Govt of Tamil Nadu, stressed on the following points in his valedictory address.
- 23 GW in the next 5 years
- 5000 Cr transmission project planned with the help of private investments
- Wind evacuation to be given importance
- Government working on ensuring full utilization of the wind assets in the state
- Ministry striving to make TN power free from power cuts by August 2012
- Evacuation infrastructure to be created using PPP model
- Private investments are very critical