NEW DELHI : The federal government is contemplating revising its industrial electrification technique to prioritize adopting cleaner power sources, akin to inexperienced hydrogen and battery storage, over fossil fuels amid the necessity to meet net-zero targets and the potential imposition of taxes on merchandise primarily based on their carbon emissions by developed nations.
The federal government plans to develop a long-term technique to transition industries that use fossil fuels to cleaner power sources. The transfer comes because the metal and aluminium sectors, which predominantly use fuel and captive coal-based energy crops, might want to shift to cleaner fuels like inexperienced hydrogen to align with India’s net-zero objectives and world mandates just like the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
“The technique is being checked out, as round the clock dependable energy can’t be assured for all of the industries, and industries like metal want 24/7 energy. Additional, even when they get linked to the grid, many of the provide could be by way of coal-based energy, and solely a few of it will be by way of photo voltaic, which doesn’t assist these companies on the decarbonization entrance. When storage comes up, they are going to be capable to take it from open entry, however storage price would come down solely step by step,” mentioned one of many folks conscious of the developments.
The deal with electrification might now be additional narrowed all the way down to renewable power.
Given the rising investments in inexperienced hydrogen, industries might be supplied with extra options to transition away from utilizing fossil fuels, one other individual conscious of the event mentioned.
“Inexperienced hydrogen could be a distinct play; each electrification and hydrogen could be aggressive with one another,” mentioned the second individual.
The federal government can also be contemplating establishing a timeline to transition to cleaner fuels to keep away from enterprise disruptions.
“Industries have simply recovered from the pandemic’s impact. Due to this fact, there is no such thing as a intention to trigger a disruption,” the individual added.
Iron and metal devour the best quantity of electrical energy at 24% of the whole industrial electrical energy consumption in India, adopted by chemical and petrochemical (17%), non-metallic minerals (9%), and different industries (48%), in response to information from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi). The MSME sector has a excessive penetration of electrification, with roughly 76% of the power demand.
The consumption of electrical energy by the business sector has doubled prior to now decade. Mospi information confirmed that consumption of electrical energy by the economic sector rose to five,51,362 GWh in 2019-20 from 2,72,589 GWh in 2010-11. In 2020, the Indian manufacturing sector’s major sources of power was coal (29%), adopted by oil (20%), electrical energy (22%), pure fuel (19%), renewables (6%) and warmth (4%), information from Worldwide Vitality Company exhibits.
The assessment of the technique is important provided that Indian producers of carbon-intensive merchandise akin to metal are anticipated to be closely impacted by the EU’s proposed carbon tariffs.
India can also be prone to counter the EU’s carbon tariff in addition to put together the home business to evolve with the brand new mechanism that comes into drive in its transitional section on 1 October. The everlasting system will take impact in 2026.
An individual accustomed to the event mentioned that India is in talks with Europe to acknowledge carbon buying and selling certificates that firms within the nation would get beneath the newly deliberate carbon market.
“Vitality transition is essential for metal firms each from the home and worldwide views. Together with working in tandem with India’s internet zero goal, they’d additionally want to maneuver in direction of greener choices resulting from European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). The emission of carbon dioxide per tonne of metal produced in India is greater than in a number of different international locations. So, Indian metal firms, given their vital exports to Europe, could also be among the many affected gamers resulting from CBAM,” mentioned Jayanta Roy, group head of company sector scores at ICRA Ltd.
Indian firms want to deal with the power transition necessities as different developed international locations and blocs may also observe the EU’s path and provide you with comparable tariffs on carbon-intensive merchandise, he mentioned.
Queries despatched to the spokespeople for the ministries of energy and commerce remained unanswered.
Up to date: 08 Might 2023, 12:28 AM IST