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Roadmap to energy justice

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Energy, Environment, Conservation

 

Source: IE

 

Context: India’s energy strategy is presently recognised as being pragmatic and balanced since it is motivated by assuring energy access, availability, and affordability for its vast population.

 

What is energy justice? Energy justice envisions elements of a global energy system that fairly distributes both energy services’ benefits and burdens and can be used as a framework to identify energy injustices.

 

Short-term actions towards ensuring energy justice in India:

  • Massive cuts in excise duty and VAT rates of petrol and diesel.
  • An export cess on petrol, diesel and ATF.
  • Windfall tax on domestically produced petroleum products to prevent refiners and producers from profiteering at the cost of domestic consumers.
  • Subsidised administered pricing mechanism (APM) gas for the city gas distribution sector was drastically increased.
  • Revising the New Domestic Gas Pricing Guidelines 2014 to rationalise and reform APM gas pricing.

 

Outcome:

  • Prices of diesel in India have gone down in the last year: This is when petrol and diesel prices went up by 35-40% in global markets, India imports over 85% of its crude oil requirements and 55% of its natural gas requirements.
  • No shortage of fuel anywhere in India: This is when several neighbourhood countries have had dry outs and power cuts to manage demand.

 

Long-term actions towards ensuring energy justice:

 

  1. Expanding the network of crude oil suppliers: This strategic decision not only ensured affordable energy for Indian consumers but also had a calming effect on global petroleum markets.

 

  1. Strengthening ties: With countries like the US (energy trade has gone up 13 times in the last four years) and Russia to ensure a reliable supply of crude oil.

 

Expanding petrochemical production:

  • India is a global exporter of petroleum products and its refining capacity is the fourth largest in the world after the US, China, and Russia.
  • Efforts are underway to further enhance this capacity to 450 MMT by 2040.

 

  1. Innovation and investments in exploration and production (E&P): India wants to boost its net geographic area under exploration from 8% to 15% (0.5 million sq km) by 2025 and has reduced the prohibited/no-go areas in EEZ by 99%.

 

  1. Energy transition: However, as demonstrated at Glasgow, India is committed to becoming net-zero in emissions by 2070.

 

  1. Moving towards a gas-based economy:
  • By increasing the share of gas from the current 3 to 15% by 2030.
  • India has connected more than 9.5 crore families with clean cooking fuel in the past nine years.
  • PNG connections have increased from 28 lakh in 2014 to over 1 crore in 2023.
  • The number of CNG stations in India has gone up from 938 in 2014 to 4,900 in 2023.
  • Since 2014, India has increased the length of its gas pipeline network from 14,700 km to 22,000 km in 2023.

 

  1. Biofuel revolution:
  • At the recent India Energy Week 2023, India launched E20 – 20% ethanol blended gasoline – which will be expanded across the country in the next two years.
  • India’s ethanol-blending gasoline has grown from just 53% in 2013-14 to 10.17% in 2023.
  • India is also setting up five 2nd generation ethanol plants, which can convert agricultural waste into biofuel → reducing pollution due to stubble burning → generating income for farmers.

 

  1. Developing the entire green hydrogen ecosystem:
  • The National Green Hydrogen Mission has been launched with an outlay of Rs 19,744 crore to accelerate India’s efforts towards –
    • 4 MT of annual green hydrogen production and
    • Rs 1 lakh crore of fossil fuel import savings by 2030.

 

  1. An integrated path for transitioning India’s future mobility pathways:
  • Along with green hydrogen and biofuels, India is also supporting electric vehicles through a production-linked incentive scheme.
  • India is targeting the installation of alternative fuel stations (EV charging/CNG/ LPG/LNG/CBG etc.) at 22,000 retail outlets by May 2024.

 

 

Conclusion:

  • According to IEA estimates, India will account for ~25% of global energy demand growth between 2020-2040.
  • As India aspires to become a $26 trillion economy by 2047, implementing a unique strategy for ensuring energy security and achieving energy independence is the need of the hour.

 

Insta Links: The Road to Energy Atmanirbharta

 

Mains Links:

  1. “Access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy is the sine qua non to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.Comment on the progress made in India in this regard. (UPSC 2018)