Guest editorial

Citation

Singh, A. (2009), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Energy Sector Management, Vol. 3 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijesm.2009.32803caa.002

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Energy Sector Management, Volume 3, Issue 3

About the Guest Editor

Anoop Singh Graduate in Mechanical Engineering and a post-graduate in Industrial Engineering. He obtained a PhD from Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai in 2001. He served with Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission before joining the Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 2001. He has published research papers on various energy issues includes power sector regulation, competition in power markets, renewable energy credits, infrastructure financing, Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline, etc. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, United Nations University/Indian Administrative Service and other organizations. He has also been a member of the Working Group on Power for the XIth Five-Year Plan of Government of India.

Dear Readers,

I am pleased to present to you a special issue of the International Journal of Energy Sector Management on India. It is an attempt to provide readers with quality scholarly papers on a variety of energy sector management issues in the Indian context. Growing economies like India face challenges in expanding their energy supplies to meet the growing demand for energy. Policymakers, investors as well as academicians often grapple with a variety of energy sector issues including energy access for the poor, investment, energy efficiency, environment, renewable energy, regulation and management. We believe that the selection of papers in this special issue would provide the readers with an interesting insight about some of these issues.

The high economic growth of the Indian economy in the recent past cannot be sustained unless increasing supplies of affordable energy is available for industrial, transport, domestic, agricultural and services sector of the economy. Apart from this, a large proportion of the population, especially in rural and remote areas do not have access to clean and affordable sources of energy. This, energy remains at the centre of the policy-making debate in the country.

The per capita energy consumption remains low as compared to world average.

In 2003, India consumed 439 kilograms of oil equivalent per person of primary energy in 2003 compared to 1,090 in China, 7,835 in the USA and the world average of 1,688.

In 2007-2008, per capita electricity consumption in India was 704.2 kiloWalthours, as compared to the world average of about 2,600 kiloWalthours in 2005. Despite a growth in energy consumption access to clean energy forms remains low. As on 31 March 2009, only 82.3 per cent of the country’s villages have been electrified. Household access to electricity remains low. With limited access to electricity, energy shortage remains at 10.3 per cent and peak shortage remains at 13.5 per cent speak of large investment required for capacity creation as well as for improvement in energy efficiency.

The purpose of the special issue on India is to bring together expert views on a variety of issues facing the Indian energy sector. Over the past year, we received a number of papers. These were subjected to blind peer reviews to ensure that they meet the quality standard of the journal and are of high-scholarly standard. The papers were revised on the basis of comments received from reviews. This process led to a final selection of five papers. These papers cover some of the energy sector issues facing the country. These include long-term energy-economy interaction, energy efficiency, trans-border energy cooperation, electricity markets and access to energy by poor. While there are many more issues concerning the energy sector in India, the special issue presents a spectrum of challenges across major energy sectors and which could be addressed at various levels of policy making. The remaining issues are expected to be covered in the future issues of the journal. We believe that readers of the journal would appreciate these papers and provide their inputs to take the debate further on the issues covered in this issue.

At a macro-level, there are economy wide concerns to manage long-term energy demand with the constrained resource availability. Technological choices for energy conversion and utilisation are dictated primarily by cost minimisation. New challenges in terms of concerns of local as well as global environmental concern may tend to shape a sustainable path of economic growth. In the first paper, Jyoti Parikh and Probal P. Ghosh use a multi-sectoral computable general equilibrium modelling framework to chalk out long-term economic growth with alternate technological choices for energy resources. The paper provides scenario results which have time horizon and assumptions similar to those in the integrated energy policy, and hence provide greater relevance to the policy makers. The paper finds that choice of cleaner fuels and technologies results in additional costs which should be factored in policy formulations to address energy as well as environmental concerns.

India’s growing dependence on imported fossil fuel is a cause of concern. Apart from crude oil, natural gas imports are rising in the form of liquid natural gas. P.R. Shukla and Subash Dhar explore the advantages of cross-border cooperation with trans-border natural gas pipeline. The authors argue that apart from meeting the energy need of the country, it may also address regional imbalance in availability of energy resources. Using a long-term energy system model ANSWER-MARKAL, the paper highlights substantial economic benefits of trans-country natural gas pipelines.

The electricity market in India was liberalised over the past few years. The emergence of power exchanges is expected to provide a competitive platform for trading of electricity amongst suppliers and users of electricity. The role of regulators gains prominence in such a scenario. Prabodh Bajpai and Sri Niwas Singh propose a model for market monitoring for the Indian electricity market. The paper highlights the desirability of application of economic tools to understand and investigate non-competitive behaviour of market participants.

The persistent gap in demand and supply of energy especially, electricity, is a challenge not only for he existing consumers but also hinders deployment of large-scale programme to provide access of electricity to consumers located in rural and remote areas. Increasing competitiveness is now forcing manufacturers to adopt technologies and operational practices that can help improve energy efficiency. However, lack access to financing by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often proves to be a hindrance for investment in energy efficient technologies. Jyoti Prasad Painuly presents a perspective on financing energy efficiency from a project experience in India and China. The paper highlights special needs and challenges in undertaking energy efficiency projects with the SMEs, and the role of energy service companies and financial intermediaries.

Finally, a paper by Anoop Singh presents a case for illumination needs of poor vendors in urban India. The paper highlights the high cost paid by such users who remain at the margin of the electricity grid. Entrepreneurial ingenuity has filled the gap left by the local utility as rental lamp and DG-based mini-grids fill the neglected urban landscape. Appropriate financial and institutional intervention can help improve access to cheap and green options including solar photovoltaic lanterns.

As the Guest Editor, I welcome comments from the readers on individual papers as well as on identification of issues for inclusion in future such endeavours. I hope that the readers would find papers in this issue interesting, informative and a catalyst for future research.

Wish you all a happy reading of this issue.

Anoop SinghGuest Editor