State of the Power Sector: Emerging Policies, Regulations & Reforms in Indian Utilities
Challenges faced by the Indian utilities: People, Processes & Technology Adoption
Innovation, New Technologies and Cyber Security
The country’s power sector has been going through a massive transformation. The government has undertaken vari- ous programmes such as Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS), Ujwal Discoms Assurance Yojana (UDAY) and the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) etc and the changes are already evident.
India is ranked 4th in the Asia Pacific region in overall power amongst 25 nations with an installed capacity of 335 GW and 275 million consumers on its network. India’s power sector is most diversified that has attracted nearly $15 billion in FDI between 2000-2018, accounting for 3.64% of total FDI inflows into India. Since power sector is the key to promoting industrial sector growth, the widespread power sector reforms have taken place recently. For instance, draft amendment to the Electricity Act, 2003 is introduced in September 2018 that proposes separation of content and carriage, power DBT, 24*7 power supply, penalization of violation of PPA, setting up Smart Meter and Prepaid Meters and so on. The operational and financial turnaround of state owned discoms with an aim to reduce transmission and distribution losses (T&D;) and aggregate technical and commercial losses (AT&C;) is propelled under UDAY. The target is to reduce it below 15% by March 2019. It has already improved to about 19%. In terms of operational improvement measures, all rural and urban feeders have been metered and distribution transformer metering of 58% and 51% has been achieved in urban and rural segments respectively. Feeder metering helps in ascertaining quantum of power loss due to theft and improving collection efficiency
SHAKTI Yojana is providing coal-linkage to private power plants especially the ones, which became stressed in the absence of coal-linkage. This has eased fuel supply to an additional 25-30 GW of capacity. Yet, FY18 saw the lowest capacity addition since 2014. Total capacity added during the year stood at 17.2 GW. Renewable energy accounted for 69% of the new capacity addition.
The need for a flexible, resilient and intelligent grid is becoming a priority for policymakers. It is expected that the FY19 is going to be a turnaround year, which will beat the historical growth rate of around 7%. The potential for turna- round exists in three areas: finalization of long-term PPA; steady supply of coal; accelerate solar power generation; and, affordable and efficient battery storage. This in addition to adopting modern solutions for process and efficiency improvement, cost reduction and better customer services leading to meeting regulatory norms and loss reduction. The Key Content of the 54th SKOCH Summit on State of Power Sector includes:
- State of the Power Sector: Emerging Policies, Regulations & Reforms in Indian Utilities
- Challenges faced by the Indian utilities: People, Processes & Technology Adoption
- Innovation, New Technologies and Cyber Security
POWER PANEL: THE ECONOMIC MANIFESTO
Discussion Framework: The Economic Manifestos will have the most direct impact on the lives of the common people. It is no longer about awareness, it is about economic issues becoming felt-needs. The governments, whether at the centre or the states, which have delivered strong GDP growth and macroeconomic stability, have been re-elected, while the ones which fail to deliver on the economy have higher chances of getting rejected by the electorate. No doubt, all the political parties are giving increasing importance to economic issues in their manifesto. The immediate challenges include accelerating GDP growth, controlling inflation, curbing trade and fiscal deficit and reviving business and consumer confidence. Against this backdrop the panel examines the following:
- Economic performance review till date.
- Current macroeconomic challenges.
- Economic roadmap for 2019-2024.
