NEW DELHI: The country’s electricity consumption will increase four times from about 1.1 trillion units to 4 trillion units by 2030, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal said.
Speaking at a conference on ‘The Future of Electricity’, Goyal said, “Despite massive roll-out of energy efficient schemes, we still see a possible 10 per cent jump in the electricity growth annually for the next 15 or 16 years.”
The fresh demand for power will come from the 230 million people who will get electricity for the first time, the elimination of diesel generation sets because of access to power and from increased economic activity coming from the Make in India campaign, Goyal added.
India has set a target of setting up 175 GW of renewable energy generation capacity by 2022, out of which 100 GW is to come from solar. The higher personal incomes and the emphasis given to domestic manufacturing activities will significantly increase power consumption despite improvements in energy efficiency.
The solar power capacity, presently at 6.7 GW, will touch 20 GW by next year. Since the solar power sector is on track, the government will now focus on encouraging new hydropower and wind power capacity, Goyal said.
The Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) is expected to improve health of state-run power utilities, enable them to buy more power from producers and invest more in efficiency improvement.
Goyal said the government is also ready to contract at least 70 to 80 million metric standard cubic metres (mmscmd) of natural gas from global suppliers “if they are ready to supply long-term at affordable rates, which will enable India to operate its idle gas-based power capacity.”