Today, when the United Kingdom sealed off its last remaining coal power plant, marking one of the historic milestones in the shift towards clean energy in global terms, the policy analysts observed that coal will play a major role in India’s energy mix at least for the next two to three decades. India, despite such rapid headways in renewable energy, has to continue to rely on coal for a long period ahead due to the nature of intermittency in renewables and the inability to scale up battery storage solutions.
India is the world’s second-largest consumer of coal after China, as its coal-fired power generation increased to 75% in 2023-24, from 71% in 2019-20. In contrast with the general trend, many developed economies decrease their consumption of coal. The UK, for example, has become the first G7 country that has successfully phased out coal from its energy mix. This coincides with global demands to have a coal-free system by 2040.
The closing of the UK’s last coal plant seems to be almost symbolic as coal has always been the bedrock of the British energy industry. In fact, the very first coal-power plant began in London in 1882, and as recently as 2012, nearly 39% of the electricity produced in the UK was from coal. This means that over a third of the 38 OECD countries have now made their energy supplies free of coal, while three-quarters will send coal power into an early retirement by 2030, largely to meet their climate goals intended to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Relevance of Coal in India
India is a different case altogether. Where coal consumption is declining in the likes of Europe and the United States, it keeps rising in India. During 2023 alone, India’s coal consumption increased by 8%. It was due to its large-scale energy requirements and rapidly growing businesses, such as steel and cement.
The International Energy Agency states that developed countries must bring unabated coal to an end by 2030 and the developing nations, including India, by 2040, in order for the world to meet its net-zero emissions objective by 2050. The term “unabated” means power generation without recourse to technologies to capture and store carbon to prevent its release as a greenhouse gas. India is unlikely to escape its dependence on coal, given the current level of demand in the not-too-distant future.
Coal usage for power generation started much later in India compared to developed countries. While the first coal power plant in the UK opened in 1882, the first major thermal power plant was installed in Hyderabad as the Hussain Sagar Thermal Power Station, in the year 1920. Even when the rest of the world is clamoring to have an end to coal-based power generation, policy experts opine that in the future years, based on work still needed to meet the demand for electricity, coal shall continue being an energy source crucial for India.
Energy Transition and Future Prospects
As policy experts in India believe, the country is on the path of a gradual energy transition process toward the aim of gradually reducing coal dependency in the long term. Despite the progressive expansion of renewable sources, namely solar and wind power, these are intermittent sources of energy. Without large-scale battery storage, coal still underpins India’s energy security during periods of high demand or at times of low contributions from the spread of renewable generation.
Sunil Dahiya, Independent Energy Analyst “Of course, coal will be part of the energy mix of India; however, efforts have to be made to reduce harmful emissions from power plants. This can best be achieved through enhanced pollution control technologies and improving the efficiency of coal plants curbing carbon emissions.”.
Meanwhile, climate activists emphasize that coal has environmental and social costs. Climate activist Harjeet Singh points out that the cost of coal is much more than its emissions, namely, destruction of ecosystems as well as displacement of communities. Singh further argues that India has done great strides on renewable energy; the kind of financial and technological assistance the world needs to give to support a just transition off of coal for people, in particular, and the environment, at large.
Global Expectations and Response from India
India is also said to be the world’s biggest producer, consumer, and importer of coal. Questions about India’s coal dependency have also been on one of the centerpieces of global climate debates. The West has indicated that developing countries need to speed up their phase-down of coal power. On the other hand, Indian policymakers have asserted that rich countries with a history of more generated greenhouse gas emissions should play a leading role in reducing them.
As former deputy chairman of India’s Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia has recently defined this issue, singling the focus of the West on coal as a little “hypocritical.” India is being asked to stop using coal because it is one of the major emitters, but the developed nations will go ahead using oil and natural gas-both are equally high emitters. India has decided to achieve net-zero emission by 2070, meaning it will gradually replace thermal power. At the same time, emissions will have to peak and then decline,’ noted Ahluwalia.
Sunita Narain, director general of the Centre for Science and Environment, is in sync with these sentiments as she stresses that coal is the cheapest and most reliable source of energy in India. She brings to a fore the question that instead of scrapping talk, the discussion should shift towards cleaning up usage of coal. This will ensure making plants efficient and adopting measures of controlling pollution, not just protecting the climate but also ensuring local air pollution.
Moving Forward with India’s Energy Strategy
The Indian government has always emphasized the need for coal to fulfill the energy needs of the nation, especially now that it is on its way to becoming a developed nation. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said last week that India is determined to provide energy for the country’s always-increasing population and go towards a clean, green energy future simultaneously. According to him, “I am not saying we won’t have coal power. We will have it till such time we can go to more sustainable sources of energy.”.
The momentum of India in renewable energy is unprecedented, even though coal continues to remain at the center of the overall strategy. International cooperation and support is perhaps nowhere more urgently needed to help ensure such a transition to be fair and equitable for the future energies in India.
Source: PTI, Ember