CleanTech in India -resources for the future

Market Updates

• 174GW of global installed power generation capacity of 5000 GW

• Renewable energy - 11% of the total power generation capacity

• Wind energy has grown at a CAGR of 19% to reach 14 GW in FY11. Total potential for wind energy - 46 - 70 GW

• Total solar installed capacity: 38 MW in 2011

• Daily solar radiation 4–7 kWh per sq. m. translating into potential >100 GW.

• 500 million metric tonnes of biomass annually

• 70%–75% of biomass is used as fodder, fuel and for other purposes.

• Around 120–150 million tonnes of usable biomass per year for power generation.

• Total potential estimated at 15,000 MW for biomass and 5,000 MW for bagasse-based cogeneration plants

• Total hydro installed capacity is around 40 GW

As India’s population grows rapidly, it is expected that by the year 2030, India will have a GDP of US$4 trillion and a population of more than 1.5 billion.  One of the serious side effects of this growth will be an increased demand for resources such as coal and oil which will result in an increase of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As of today, there is really no clear information on how 80 percent of this requirement will be met.  To manage its energy needs, India needs to seriously overcome inefficiencies related to technologies, assets and energy efficiency practices. This is creating a unique opportunity for clean energy development and along the sidelines means and ways to manage emission issues.

It will also need money and the funding required to manage this could easily amount to 1.8 to 2.3 percent of its GDP starting from 2010 up to 2020. A large amount of incremental investment will be required in sectors such as road transport, power, buildings and appliances even after taking into account declines in the cost of emerging technologies such as solar power.  India will also need to accelerate and expand existing programmes to increase energy efficiency towards developing clean sources of power generation, building a more responsive power sector, creating energy-efficient infrastructure and making sustainable improvements in agriculture and forestry management.

India would also need to build new end-to-end supply chains (i.e. nuclear forgings, solar manufacturing etc.) to capture opportunities.  Also emerging are opportunities in the areas related to clean tech technologies such as solar thermal, LED lighting etc.

To summarise, there exist around four sub categories of opportunities in this sector:

1. Manufacturing: Solar and PV (Photovoltic Systems), Bio Fuels, Bio Gas, Power Generation, Fuel Cells, Advanced Batteries, Hydrogen Generation and Storage.
2. Enablers: Making equipment that supports the main clean tech product. For example, devices like Solar Trackers which increase the yield of Solar Panels by tracking the movement of the sun. Cutting the cost of environmental footprint of building materials like cement etc too fall under this category.
3. Software: These are purely software (slightly embeded) based products like "Google Power Meter" or similar smart grid technologies. Green Home software and devices that track energy usage and conserve power would fall under this category.
4. Deployment: Raw material suppliers, transportation, transmission and distribution, desalinization, waste reduction, recycling etc.