ZEDWord

The cost of power

There is also the cost the government incurs to generate energy. It is way beyond what we pay. In Pondicherry, people pay a paltry Re.1.50 per unit consumed while it costs about Rs.18 per unit for the government to produce/procure the power. Who bears the deficit? In Bangalore we pay Rs.4 per unit on an average. In Gujarat, Kerala and AP, people pay a little over Rs.8 a unit used. In Tamil Nadu the tariff for homes is about Rs.5. These deficits in cost recovered will guarantee that this route of power generation and distribution with massive subsidies will not sustain for too many years. Read the rest of this entry »

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This is a four-part series titled ‘Get your home in order, will you?’ If we stopped fretting over what the government has not done on energy and water, and sort some things at home, more than half the solution will spring before us.

Part 1

The power scene at home

Have you looked at your energy bill recently? What is the amount you pay every month for power? For water? Have you asked yourself what the break up of power used in your house is? Do you realize how much of the power bill is coming out of use of your geysers? How much is consumed by fans, your lighting, your TV set, the grinder and mixer in the kitchen, or worse that electric oven that your mother gifted you on your last birthday? How much of the power is used in your kitchen by the refrigerator, the heating plate, and such other appliances that didn’t even exist 30 years ago? Read the rest of this entry »

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Demand from the key six big sectors will grow fourfold to two billion tons by 2030. Home production of coal by that time will be about 1.5 billion tons. Demand at two billion.

Business as usual will have India import about 500 million tons of coal to meet requirements of just the six sectors. Even in low carbon coal need will be about 1.5 billion tons in 2030, thrice the current level of production.

Freshwater consumption will more than triple in the next two decades and reach 18,000 million cubic meters in 2030. This is water that is lost and has serious social and environmental implications.

The power sector will account for the major share of freshwater consumption; its share will reduce from 90.5 to 85% in 2030. Water use will increase most dramatically in the iron and steel sector, in the cement sector and the aluminum sector. These sectors will see a six-fold increase in water use.

In low carbon freshwater use in 2030 is about 10% lower than in business as usual, this is largely because of reduction in power generation from coal-based power plants that one hopes will happen.

Pic: osawaterworks.com

The meticulously planned off-grid systems of power generation in a village suddenly can suffer a major undoing of the gains if grid electricity is brought to the place.

Isolated off-grid systems usually fail when the government does not have a clear roadmap on what they want to do in the village as far as electrification goes in the long term. Their very small scale of generation makes it difficult for off-grid producers to partner with electricity user groups. Read the rest of this entry »