Energy efficiency in India: Assessing the policy regimes and their impacts

In the recent years. India has emerged as one of the fast growing economies of the world necessitating equally rapid increase in modern energy consumption. With an imminent global climate change threat, India will have difficulties in continuing with this rising energy use levels towards achieving high economic growth. It will have to follow an energy-efficient pathway in attaining this goal. In this context, an attempt is made to present India's achievements on the energy efficiency front by tracing the evolution of policies and their impacts. The results indicate that India has made substantial progress in improving energy efficiency which is evident from the reductions achieved in energy intensities of GDP to the tune of 88% during 1980-2007. Similar reductions have been observed both with respect to overall Indian economy and the major sectors of the economy. In terms of energy intensity of GDP, India occupies a relatively high position of nine among the top 30 energy consuming countries of the world. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sustainable bioenergy for India: Technical, economic and policy analysis

India's energy challenges are multi-pronged. They are manifested through growing demand for modern energy carriers, a fossil fuel dominated energy system facing a severe resource crunch, the need for creating access to quality energy for the large section of deprived population, vulnerable energy security, local and global pollution regimes and the need for sustaining economic development. Renewable energy is considered as one of the most promising alternatives. Recognizing this potential, India has been implementing one of the largest renewable energy programmes in the world. Among the renewable energy technologies. bioenergy has a large diverse portfolio including efficient biomass stoves, biogas, biomass combustion and gasification and process heat and liquid fuels. India has also formulated and implemented a number of innovative policies and programmes to promote bioenergy technologies. However, according to some preliminary studies, the success rate is marginal compared to the potential available. This limited success is a clear indicator of the need for a serious reassessment of the bioenergy programme. Further, a realization of the need for adopting a sustainable energy path to address the above challenges will be the guiding force in this reassessment. In this paper an attempt is made to consider the potential of bioenergy to meet the rural energy needs: (I) biomass combustion and gasification for electricity; (2) biomethanation for cooking energy (gas) and electricity; and (3) efficient wood-burning devices for cooking. The paper focuses on analysing the effectiveness of bioenergy in creating this rural energy access and its sustainability in the long run through assessing: the demand for bioenergy and potential that could be created; technologies, status of commercialization and technology transfer and dissemination in India; economic and environmental performance and impacts: bioenergy policies, regulatory measures and barrier analysis. The whole assessment aims at presenting bioenergy as an integral part of a sustainable energy strategy for India. The results show that bioenergy technology (BET) alternatives compare favourably with the conventional ones. The cost comparisons show that the unit costs of BET alternatives are in the range of 15-187% of the conventional alternatives. The climate change benefits in terms of carbon emission reductions are to the tune of 110 T C per year provided the available potential of BETs are utilized.

Reservoir performance under uncertainty in hydrologic impacts of climate change

Relatively few studies have addressed water management and adaptation measures in the face of changing water balances due to climate change. The current work studies climate change impact on a multipurpose reservoir performance and derives adaptive policies for possible futurescenarios. The method developed in this work is illustrated with a case study of Hirakud reservoir on the Mahanadi river in Orissa, India,which is a multipurpose reservoir serving flood control, irrigation and power generation. Climate change effects on annual hydropower generation and four performance indices (reliability with respect to three reservoir functions, viz. hydropower, irrigation and flood control, resiliency, vulnerability and deficit ratio with respect to hydropower) are studied. Outputs from three general circulation models (GCMs) for three scenarios each are downscaled to monsoon streamflow in the Mahanadi river for two future time slices, 2045-65 and 2075-95. Increased irrigation demands, rule curves dictated by increased need for flood storage and downscaled projections of streamflow from the ensemble of GCMs and scenarios are used for projecting future hydrologic scenarios. It is seen that hydropower generation and reliability with respect to hydropower and irrigation are likely to show a decrease in future in most scenarios, whereas the deficit ratio and vulnerability are likely to increase as a result of climate change if the standard operating policy (SOP) using current rule curves for flood protection is employed. An optimal monthly operating policy is then derived using stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) as an adaptive policy for mitigating impacts of climate change on reservoir operation. The objective of this policy is to maximize reliabilities with respect to multiple reservoir functions of hydropower, irrigation and flood control. In variations to this adaptive policy, increasingly more weightage is given to the purpose of maximizing reliability with respect to hydropower for two extreme scenarios. It is seen that by marginally sacrificing reliability with respect to irrigation and flood control, hydropower reliability and generation can be increased for future scenarios. This suggests that reservoir rules for flood control may have to be revised in basins where climate change projects an increasing probability of droughts. However, it is also seen that power generation is unable to be restored to current levels, due in part to the large projected increases in irrigation demand. This suggests that future water balance deficits may limit the success of adaptive policy options. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Groundwater Management in India:Physical, Institutional and Policy Alternatives

Groundwater constitutes a vital natural resource for sustaining India’s agricultural economy and meeting the country’s social, ecological and environmental goals. It is a unique resource, widely available, providing security against droughts and yet it is closely linked to surface-water resources and the hydrological cycle. Its availability depends on geo-hydrological conditions and characteristics of aquifers, from deep to alluvium, sediment crystalline rocks to basalt formations; and agro-climate from humid to subhumid and semi-arid to arid. Its reliable supply, uniform quality and temperature, relative turbidity, pollution-safe, minimal evaporation losses, and low cost of development are attributes making groundwater more attractive compared to other resources. It plays a key role in the provision of safe drinking water to rural populations. For example, already almost 80% of domestic water use in rural areas in India is groundwater-supplied, and much of it is being supplied to farms, villages and small towns. Inadequate control of the use of groundwater, indiscriminate application of agrochemicals and unrestrained pollution of the rural environment by other human activities make groundwater usage unsustainable, necessitating proper management in the face of the twin demand for water of good quality for domestic supply and adequate supply for irrigation, ensuring equity, efficiency and sustainability of the resource. Groundwater irrigation has overtaken surface irrigation in the early 1980s, supported by well energization. It is estimated that there are about 24 million energised wells and tube wells now and it is driven by demand rather than availability, evident through the greater occurrence of wells in districts with high population densities. Apart from aquifer characteristics, land fragmentation and landholding size are the factors that decide the density of wells. The ‘rise and fall’ of local economies dependent on groundwater can be summarized as: the green revolution of 1980s, groundwaterbased agrarian boom, early symptoms of groundwater overdraft, and decline of the groundwater socio-ecology. The social characteristics and policy interventions typical of each stage provide a fascinating insight into the human-resource dynamics. This book is a compilation of nine research papers discussing various aspects of groundwater management. It attempts to integrate knowledge about the physical system, the socio-economic system, the institutional set-up and the policy environment to come out with a more realistic analysis of the situation with regard to the nature, characteristics and intensity of resource use, the size of the economy the use generates, and the negative socioeconomic consequences. Complex variables addressed in this regard focusing on northern Gujarat are the stock of groundwater available in the region, its hydrodynamics, its net outflows against inflows, the economics of its intensive use (particularly irrigation in semi-arid and arid regions), its criticality in the regional hydroecological regime, ethical aspects and social aspects of its use. The first chapter by Dinesh Kumar and Singh, dwells on complex groundwater socio-ecology of India, while emphasizing the need for policy measures to address indiscriminate over-exploitation of dwindling resources. The chapter also explores the nature of groundwater economy and the role of electricity prices on it. The next chapter on groundwater issue in north Gujarat provides a description of groundwater resource characteristics followed by a detailed analysis of the groundwater depletion and quality deterioration problems in the region and their undesirable consequences on the economy, ecosystem health and the society. Considering water-buyers and wellowning farmers individually, a methodology for economic valuation of groundwater in regions where its primary usage is in agriculture, and as assessment of the groundwater economy based on case studies from north Gujarat is presented in the fourth chapter. The next chapter focuses on the extent of dependency of milk production on groundwater, which includes the water embedded in green and dry fodder and animal feed. The study made a realistic estimate of irrigation water productivity in terms of the physics and economics of milk production. The sixth chapter analyses the extent of reduction in water usage, increase in yield and overall increase in physical productivity of alfalfa with the use of the drip irrigation system. The chapter also provides a detailed synthesis of the costs and benefits associated with the use of drip irrigation systems. A linear programmingbased optimization model with the objective to minimize groundwater use taking into account the interaction between two distinct components – farming and dairying under the constraints of food security and income stability for different scenarios, including shift in cropping pattern, introduction of water-efficient crops, water- saving technologies in addition to the ‘business as usual’ scenario is presented in the seventh chapter. The results show that sustaining dairy production in the region with reduced groundwater draft requires crop shifts and adoption of water-saving technologies. The eighth chapter provides evidences to prove that the presence of adequate economic incentive would encourage farmers to adopt water-saving irrigation devices, based on the findings of market research with reference to the level of awareness among farmers of technologies and the factors that decide the adoption of water-saving technologies. However, now the marginal cost of using electricity for agricultural pumping is almost zero. The economic incentives are strong and visible only when the farmers are either water-buyers or have to manage irrigation with limited water from tube-well partnerships. The ninth chapter explores the socio-economic viability of increasing the power tariff and inducing groundwater rationing as a tool for managing energy and groundwater demand, considering the current estimate of the country’s annual economic loss of Rs 320 billion towards electricity subsidy in the farm sector. The tenth chapter suggests private tradable property rights and development of water markets as the institutional tool for achieving equity, efficiency and sustainability of groundwater use. It identifies the externalities for local groundwater management and emphasizes the need for managing groundwater by local user groups, supported by a thorough analysis of groundwater socio-ecology in India. An institutional framework for managing the resource based on participatory approach that is capable of internalizing the externalities, comprising implementation of institutional and technical alternatives for resource management is also presented. Major findings of the analyses and key arguments in each chapter are summarized in the concluding chapter. Case studies of the social and economic benefits of groundwater use, where that use could be described as unsustainable, are interesting. The benefits of groundwater use are outlined and described with examples of social and economic impacts of groundwater and the negative aspects of groundwater development with the compilation of environmental problems based on up-to-date research results. This publication with a well-edited compilation of case studies is informative and constitutes a useful publication for students and professionals.

Simulated water resource impacts and livelihood implications of stakeholder-developed scenarios in the Jaldhaka Basin, India

This paper shows how multidisciplinary research can help policy makers develop policies for sustainable agricultural water management interventions by supporting a dialogue between government departments that are in charge of different aspects of agricultural development. In the Jaldhaka Basin in West Bengal, India, a stakeholder dialogue helped identify potential water resource impacts and livelihood implications of an agricultural water management rural electrification scenario. Hydrologic modelling demonstrated that the expansion of irrigation is possible with only a localized effect on groundwater levels, but cascading effects such as declining soil fertility and negative impacts from agrochemicals will need to be addressed.