Mankind is using up energy resources of mother earth in a way no other animal has ever done. The largest contributions to current energy sources in the world come from oil (31 per cent), coal (26 per cent) and natural gas (19 per cent). At the present rate of consumption, oil reserves will last for 40 years, gas reserves for 60 years, coal reserves for 125 years and uranium reserves will last for 1,000 years.
India has 17 per cent of the world’s population, but only about 0.8 per cent of the world’s known oil and natural gas sources. Our per capita coal reserves are much below Russia, the USA and China. Based on the progress visualised for the nation during the next two decades, the power generating capacity has to increase to 4, 00, 000 MW by the year 2030 from the current 1,30, 000 MW in India. This takes into consideration energy economics and the design and production of energy efficient equipment and systems.
New and emerging technologies like hydrogen energy, fuel cells, biofuels, electric and hybrid electric vehicles, geo-thermal energy and tidal energy hold major promise for mitigating the energy crisis in the country, especially for power generation and transportation as such to achieve energy independence. These are renewable and do not get depleted with use like fossil fuels. Innovation in technology, development and applications has to drive the renewable energy (Green Power) marketplace.
Over 1.64 billion people in the world lack access to electricity. For those people, who cannot be provided with electricity by extending the grid, their hope rests in innovation and as such the emerging technologies. Presently, installed generation capacity of renewable energy is 13,730 MW from various sources which is approximately 8 per cent of total installed capacity in the country and contributing to around 3 per cent of total national electricity generation. The stupendous growth stimulates enhanced energy requirements.
The Government of India set an example as one of the few countries that created an independent Ministry for renewable energy, the MNRE (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy) in the early 1980s. In line with the Central Government policy, renewable energy development agencies in State level are also created. As a follow-up action on the “Comprehensive Policy on Renewable Energy” announced by the Government of Maharashtra, the State Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board, Pune has included non-conventional energy sources as a subject in the syllabus from Standards IX to XII.
An effective and far reaching awareness campaign about renewable energy is being organized to commemorate the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi as “Rajiv Gandhi Akshay Urja Diwas “ (RGAUD) on August 20 every year since 2004 all over the country. Public awareness programmes are organized on this day at the national, State and district levels through mass rallies, organizing essay, quiz, slogan writing and painting competitions and also debates, seminars and group discussions etc. on renewable energy.
Children of several schools participate in these activities throughout the country. The objective of these activities is to create awareness on the use of new and renewable energy sources and their applications in daily life. The first national level function of RGAUD was organised in New Delhi in 2004. On this occasion, a commemorative stamp was released by the then Prime Minister. Since 2004, worldwide renewable energy capacity grew at rates of 10–60 per cent annually for many technologies. For wind power and many other renewable technologies, growth accelerated in 2009 relative to the previous four years.
More wind power capacity was added during 2009 than any other renewable technology. However, grid-connected PV increased the fastest of all renewable technologies, with a 60 per cent annual average growth rate. In 2010, renewable power constituted about a third of the newly built power generation capacities. By 2014, the installed capacity of photovoltaics will likely exceed that of wind, but due to the lower capacity factor of solar, the energy generated from photovoltaics is not expected to exceed that of wind until 2015. Today, India has an installed capacity of 15,542 MW of grid connected renewable contributing 3.5 per cent of electricity generated in the country. National Solar Mission established in November 2009 began the mainstreaming of renewable in India.
(Dr Senapati is a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry, Trident Academy of Technology, Bhubaneswar, who can be contacted at drsenapati@yahoo.com)