I've recently been doing some work on a report into the Indian economy and came across some startling and alarming facts relating to both its energy production and consumption.
First, India's current installed power generation capacity is already a staggering 143,000 MW. The UK, by comparison, is around 75,000 MW.
Second, this is set to increase rapidly. India's per capita electricity consumption is only 672 kwh per year, a quarter of the global average and a tenth of the average of OECD countries. What's more, the government has a clearly defined policy to provide electricity for all Indians, even if the deadline keeps slipping. To do this it not only has to meet growing demand; first it has to overcome a peak load production capacity deficit of 16.6%. As a result, an extra 75,000 MW, the equivalent of the entire UK production capacity, is due to come online in the next five years.
Third, most of the fuel that will be used to produce this extra electricity will be coal. Although the proportion of electricity generated in India by burning coal has fallen over the years to just over 50%, the increasing cost of gas and oil means expansion of these areas is unlikely. India is already the third largest coal producing country in the world at 458m tonnes last year. This is forecast to grow to nearly 680m tonnes by 2012.
The only silver lining in this rather sooty cloud is India's relatively high level of electricity production from renewables. The country's hydroelectric potential alone is estimated to exceed 150,000 MW. Current installed capacity is around 16,500 MW, about 21% of the total. Another 15,000 MW of projects are under construction while feasibility studies have already been conducted for another 50,000 MW, mostly in the Himalayan region.
India's other sources of renewable energy - wind, solar, geothermal and biomass - are also relatively well-developed, contributing 11,000 MW or 8% of the total. To meet Western levels of electricity consumption, however, there seems little doubt that either vast amounts of CO2 will be released from burning coal, or vast areas of Himalayan wilderness will be lost to hydroelectric dams, or both.
While alleviating the appalling human suffering of India's poor through the provision of electricity supplies is noble and worthwhile, surely the only long term answer is for us all to consume less electricity?
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