Cement Energy and Environment

-. Renewable capacity addition scenarios envisaged by WISE to meet the NAPCC target Scenario Wind dominant Biomass and small hydropower dominant Solar dominant Source: WISE Cumulative installed capacity By end-2016-17: 62,103 MW; By end-2020: 100,267 MW By end-2016-17: 59,061 MW; by end-2020: 89,355 MW By end-2016-17: 63,471 MW; by end- 2020:120,755 MW for the policy-induced and aggressive scenarios. Though the MNRE has made it clear that the NAPCC target may not be achievable under the current circumstances, the Planning Commission has reinstated the government's commitment towards increasing the renewable energy intake to 15 per cent by 2020 in the Twelfth Plan approach paper. Such a scenario, where in different government bodies are making different st atements about the country's long-term growth vision, creates a high degree of uncertainty of prospective investors. The Twelfth Plan approach paper also highlights the critical issue of underestimation of the renewable energy potential and the need for its reassessment. At present, the country's renewable energy potential as evaluated by the MNRE is 90 GW, excluding solar power, which, according to the Planning Commission, is estimated to have a potential of 500 GW. In Annual average addition during Twelfth Plan Wind power: 5,662 MW; solar power: 740MW Biomass-based power: 1,334 MW; small hydro: 535 MW Solar power: 3,395 MW; Wind power: 3,400 MW Annual average addition of dominant source during 2017-20 Wind power: 9,436 MW Biomass-based power: 1,413MW; Small hydro: 750 MW Solar power: 6,000 MW sharp contrast, the Lawrence Berkele National Laboratory estimates just wind energy potential to be 890 GW (includ ing onshore and offshore capacities). These variations highlight the need to reassess the renewable potential in order to present a more realistic picture to investors. Bridging the gap Ramping up capacities in order to meet the NAPCC target requi res a mission-level intervention from the government. So far, the industry has responded well to federal and state-level incentives and programmes launched during the past few years, achieving an unprecedented annual renewable capacity addition of about 2,500 MW during the Eleventh Plan. However, increasing the capacity addition by more than double in the next plan period requires the existing policies to be revamped and the institutional and infrastructu re-related bottlenecks to be removed . Pune-based Wind Institute of Sustainable Energy (Wise) has proposed a road map for reaching the NAPCC target in its recently released report, achieving 12 per cent Green Electricity by 2017. The report proposes three different scenarios as well as changes in the regulatory and policy framework for achieving the target. Some of the recommendations pertain to reforming the regu latory and pol icy framework. The report proposes the enactment of a law dedicated to renewable energy development and formulation of comprehensive policies at the state level. The law would also provide a legal mandate to the MNRE to ensure faster development of renewable energy projects, both utility scale and off-grid. Several state governments have formulated policies and launched programmes to support renewable power generation. These provide incentives and set targets for capacity addition . Though commendable, a key issue is that these policies have been designed in isol c:~tion , without keeping the broader national policy in mind. This underl ines the importance of synch ronizing the central- and state-level regu latory frameworks. For instance, only two states - Maharashtra and Haryana have fixed preferential tariffs for wind energy in line with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission's (CERC) guidelines. Also, homogeneity is needed in interstate connectivity 21