Research area: Energy Transitions

Rethinking India’s Energy Policy

Introduction

An energy supply approach is inadequate to India’s energy requirements at a time when multiple objectives need to be addressed. The state of play in energy supply and demand is examined, and the recovery of an older tradition of attention to energy demand patterns in addition to energy supply is argued for. The gains from an explicit attention to the fact that India has to address multiple and simultaneous objectives in shaping energy policymaking are laid out, and emerging methodologies to serve this goal are discussed. Shifts in governance patterns are a necessary part of transitioning to a broader, and more development-focused approach to energy policy.

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The Disruptive Politics of Renewable Energy

Introduction

The expansion of renewable energy (RE) within India’s electricity system is not a technical question alone. It is also an inherently political struggle between powerful incumbents and disruptive challengers, with destabilising consequences for existing institutional forms and power structures. The existing system is held in place by a supporting configuration of technology, politics and institutions. If RE is to substantially displace fossil fuels, the existing configuration will have to give way to a new such configuration that supports RE. This article explains the existing political and institutional underpinnings of the current electricity system, and discusses the forces that hold them in place and what it will take to shake these loose. In doing so, it seeks to make two points to two discrete audiences. First, to electricity and energy practitioners, it suggests that looking at the spread of RE only through a technical lens is highly incomplete; the likelihood, speed and impact of RE will be determined by political and institutional factors as well. Second, to broader analysts of India’s economy and politics, it suggests that disruptions in Indian energy are highly likely to also imply disruptive politics and economics; any story of Indian political economy in the coming decade is incomplete without an exploration of shifts driven by changes in electricity politics.

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The Ecological Costs of Doing Business: Environment, Energy and Climate Change

Summary

What perspective did the BJP government bring to the link between environment, energy and climate change on the one hand and development on the other, and what consequent actions has it taken? In this essay published in ‘Re-forming India: The Nation Today’, Penguin India, the authors assess the government’s actions in areas of environment, energy and climate change with a view to interpreting its track record.

Focusing less on environmental outcomes and more on the changes in direction introduced by the government, Dubash and Ghosh explore four themes. First, they examine the government’s focus on the ‘cost of doing business’ and ask whether reducing this cost has come at an environmental price. Second, they analyse cases in which an environment and energy agenda was driven by political imperatives, such as around energy access or Ganga rejuvenation. Third, they explore whether and how the government has addressed the emergent big picture environment and energy questions that will shape India’s future, beyond immediate regulatory changes. Finally, they examine its diplomacy in the areas of climate change and energy, and reflect on what the accumulated record implies in terms of India’s environmental governance.

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The Price of Power: The political economy of electricity trade and hydropower development in eastern South Asia

Summary

This article frames the political economy of electricity trade and hydropower development in eastern South Asia. It distils and analyzes four crucial variables in this regard: the health of distribution companies in India; the role of hydropower in India’s ambitious turn to renewable energy; Bangladesh’s power crisis and import dependency; and the governance of regional electricity trading arrangements. It argues that progress in both electricity trade and hydropower development in the region will be incremental in the next decade, hindered by mixed demand signals and the turbulence of geopolitics.

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More priorities, more problems? Decision-making with multiple energy, development and climate objectives

Summary

The Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement pose new conceptual challenges for energy decision makers by compelling them to consider the implications of their choices for development and climate mitigation objectives. This is a nontrivial exercise as it requires pragmatic consideration of the interconnections between energy systems and their social and environmental contexts and working with a plurality of actors and values. There are an increasing number of indices, frameworks and academic studies that capture these interconnections, yet policy makers have relatively few ex-ante tools to pragmatically aid decision-making. This paper, based on a collation of 167 studies, reviews how multi-criteria decision approaches (MCDA) are used in energy policy decisions to explicitly consider multiple social and environmental objectives, and the conceptual usefulness of doing so. First, MCDA can be used to distil a finite set of objectives from those of a large number of actors. This process is often political and objectives identified are aligned with vested interests or institutional incentives. Second, MCDA can be used to build evidence that is both qualitative and quantitative in nature to capture the implications of energy choices across economic, environmental, social and political metrics. Third, MCDA can be used to explore synergies and trade-offs between energy, social and environmental objectives, and in turn, make explicit the political implications of choices for actors. The studies reviewed in this paper demonstrate that the use of MCDA is so far mainly academic and for problems in the Global North. We argue for a mainstreaming of such a multi-criteria and deliberative approaches for energy policy decisions in developing countries where trade-offs between energy, development and climate mitigation are more contentious while recognizing the data, capacity and transparency requirements of the process.

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