Ajay Mathur, former boss of Government of India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency, who literally redefined energy efficient systems in the country, is the new Director-General of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

A veteran technocrat, Mathur feels that corporate India should take immediate steps to future’-proof its energy requirements. Otherwise, high fossil fuel in the future will erode its earnings. In an interview with BusinessLine , he shared his ideas for a sustainable business environment. Excerpts:

How can corporate houses help meet emissions reduction targets, as Indian aims to join the Paris Climate Agreement?

By 2030, the national goals are to reduce Green House Gas Emissions by 30 to 35 per cent (per unit of GDP) compared to 2005 levels. By that year, about 40 per cent of electricity produced in the country need to be from non-fossil fuel sources and the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by trees and forest cover would be about three billion tonnes.

In setting these goals, a number of consultations have been held with all stakeholders, including industry houses. Now, the time has come to set into motion, activities, which will help in achieving the goals.

Business houses in India have hugely contributed to renewable and energy efficiency sector. Their role in afforestation is also very good but the number of corporates contributing to these sectors should increase substantially.

Cleaner and greener business practices should be based on self-protection as the prices of fossil fuels in the future could be uncertain. The chances are that the prices could be much more than the present levels. In other words, the fuel prices could impact the bottom line of companies. Therefore, today, it makes great sense to invest in energy efficiency systems as the amount of energy required is much less. Investment in renewable energy will help freeze energy cost.

This is an important ingredient for the companies to prepare for tomorrow. Large corporates have already started assessing future prices of fossil fuels and accordingly measures are being taken.

Is adequate financing available for environment-friendly businesses?

Companies need to have a business model for financing green ventures. The success of LED bulbs in the country is a good case study. Three years ago, hardly anybody was manufacturing those bulbs but a special business model was put forth by Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) due to which over 110 million bulbs have been installed today. The point is that if we are ushering in new technologies for the environment, it needs aggregation.

The industry gets the confidence of investing in production capacity and R&D if aggregation gathers critical mass. The challenge in green business is that initial costs are higher when compared with conventional businesses and technologies. Therefore, a good business model is required. In the case of EESL, it managed to procure the bulbs in bulk and passed on the technology risk to the suppliers.

Conventional thermal coal plants consume a huge amount of water for operations but solar plants are also not far behind. They also require a large amount of purified water for cleaning the solar panels. In such a scenario, what is the way out?

There is no doubt that water as a resource is a challenge even today. Going forward, it will become more and more acute. But when such a challenge arises, interesting technical solutions come up. I will not be surprised if tomorrow, such a material is invented that it prevents dust from settling on the surface of the panels.

Maybe, blowing compressed air on the panel could be another solution. Today, the water requirement per kw/hr in a conventional thermal power plant is about 15 per cent less when compared with the requirement 10 years ago.

Already pollution control boards are asking thermal plants to install air-cooled condensers so as to reduce water use. New solutions will come up, which will reduce water use.

Geothermal and concentrated solar power technologies continue to remain on the drawing board. Why are these two not being used extensively?

The problem with geothermal in India is that the quality of heat source is not up-to-the-mark. The hot water from the geothermal sources cannot produce steam, which is required for power generation. Plus the best sources of geothermal energy are in inaccessible areas of Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh.

Therefore, wheeling in power from these sources would prove to be very expensive. The investor confidence in concentrated solar power is much less than in solar PV technologies.

The concentrated solar power requires a large number of moving parts as well as mirrors while in solar PV technology, only a static panels are used. Therefore, the cost of concentrated solar power is high. In spite of a large amount of subsidy by the Centre, there are no takers for concentrated solar power.

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