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Union Power Secretary Alok Kumar on Monday said solar and wind, the two major sources of clean energy being pursued aggressively in the country, are both intermittent and there are issues in grid management as well as storage requirements.
Complex supply
According to Kumar, India’s energy transition would be managed by the demand and supply sides equally. The country has to aggressively implement time of use, time of day tariffs and give suitable incentives for peaking generations. While the demand is expected to remain and grow, it is the supply which is more complex and depends, to a large extent, on technological developments, cost implications and the feasibility of integrating large energy in grids.
Both solar and wind energy might come in at a time when the energy requirement is not there and thereby, have to be stored. Moreover, these sources are intermittent and are not “fully predictable”.
“So grid management is important when you use a large amount of solar and wind power. There is a limit to which you can back down on coal-based stations, so we are working to make them more flexible,” Kumar said at the Future Fuels virtual summit organised by CII Eastern Region on Monday.
Alternatives
Typically when solar energy is generated, coal-based stations have to back down. However, they cannot be shut down as they would be required in the evening, and so they have to run at minimum technical load. So while the country focusses on increasing the share of solar and wind, there are two other resources available which are clean, green and widespread – hydro and biomass.
“The Ministry of Power is trying to pay attention to these sources ... you can store them and use whenever needed, and so there are not many storage and grid integration issues,” he said.
It is important to develop hydro projects in a way that they are cost effective, take care of rehabilitation and resettlement issues, and complies with environmental regulations. Biomass is also emerging as a key source in India’s energy transition, said Kumar, while also adding that work is on to develop carbon capture and utilisation technology.
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