Rs 10 lakh crores (about $160 billion) of savings are possible from energy efficiency, about 75% of these from the industrial and transport sectors for the 2022-2030 period, according to BEE estimates.
This much amount of savings can install about 300 GW of solar power projects in India, six times the total installed capacity nationwide by the end of 2021!
So, imagine a scenario such as this: A large central agency invests massively in energy efficiency across all sectors in India, monetizes all the resultant energy efficiency savings, and uses this cash to build 300 GW of zero-carbon power plants. The country now not only requires less energy to run per unit of operations but a large portion of that reduced energy can be supplied by a zero-carbon source.
The above may not really be such a fantasy after all. ESCOs (Energy services companies) operate on models with some similarity to what I have mentioned - they invest in energy efficiency installations for industries and get paid based on savings realized. Now, if the government could act as a giant ESCO, and then puts in all the monetary benefits it realizes into solar farms in some form…it doesn’t appear so fantastic now, does it?
