It is well accepted that power generation is the primary contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in India. According to an OECD study approximately 50% of India’s total green house gases (GHG) emissions are produced by its power sector. It is also important to recognise that the power system in India still relies heavily on fossil fuels. Whilst policies to promote electricity generation from non-conventional energy are being put in place a significant shift towards low-carbon energy sources, may not take place in the near future. IEA expects that most of the increase in coal demand to 2030 will come from developing countries. In addition, the largest share of the increase (81%) will come from the power sector.

This however, does not mean that in meeting India’s electricity needs we will have to neglect the impact on environment. A viable and sustainable soulution lies in encouraging generation from “clean” coal.

The Ultra Mega Power Projects being developed with private sector participation and based on tariff based competitive bidding  use super critical technology in order to achieve higher fuel efficiency which would result in saving of fuel and lowering of greenhouse gas emissions. These are the so called “clean coal” based power generation projects of 4000MW each. The supercritical units have faster starting time & load changes and are more suitable for daily start up/shut down operation and better efficiency at part load operation. Some stations with 660 MW unit size in Sipat, Vijaywada, North Karanpura and Barh are already contemplated with supercritical parameters. Inducting more efficient higher-size coal fired units rapidly is the most viable strategy to achieve the required capacity addition as per the Committee to Recommend Next Higher Unit Size of Coal Fired Thermal Power Stations which was set up by the CEA with representatives from BHEL, NTPC, Planning Commission and major utilities in the state and private sector.

The UMPPs are expected to result in lower emission levels and thereby reduce the environmental risks fn these projects.

Based on a Ernst and Young study the estimated baseline CO₂ emissions and reductions for the project would be 30.796 million tons per year (baseline value) and 29.293 million tons per year (the Project) with a CO₂ savings of 1.502 million tons/year.Although nine such projects have been identified by the CEA out of which five are in the coastal sites and four are at pithead sites, only for three plants the bids have been finalised.  Given the recent slowdown it may be difficult to get equity financing for these clean technology, however, the government should  be vigilant that this slowdown does not result in slipping back to “dirty” coal and all efforts should be made to finalise the bids of the other projects.

The following Table gives the indicative emission levels, which can be achieved in Mundra UMPP which has been awarded to the Tata Power Limited with the signing of the PPA.

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Tags: electricity, environment, green house gases

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Policy, Regulation and Competition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.