Current Energy Scenario- India is witnessing a rapid economic and industrial growth with a projected GDP of 7.8% in 2019 by IMF. To achieve this growth, it is important to ensure power security for the nation and the power generation has grown at a CAGR of 7% since 2010. Ministry of Power reports the current installed power capacity as 346 GWwith 64% thermal, 21% renewable generation, 13% large hydrobalance and 2% is met through Nuclear. Further, Central Electricity Authority (CEA) projects a coal capacity addition of 41 GW by 2027 that leads to a CO2 emission of 117.3 million tonnes, which may cause an adverse impact on the environment.
Challenges to the Indian Power Sector
Transmission & Distribution (T&D) inefficiencies - Though the power generation is progressing, CEA reported that the peak power deficit was 2.1% while overall electricity deficit was 0.7% across the country in 2017-18. One of the major reasons for this power deficit may be attributed to the high T&D losses in the power network, which is currently around 22%. Additionally, AT&C (Aggregated Technical & Commercial) losses also stands around 21%, leading to huge financial and operational stress on the DISCOM’s.
Grid Resilience - Natural disasters have taken a toll on the power network leading to blackouts and brownouts across India. The country has faced its worst blackout in July 2012, when the entire northern grid across eight states failed due to demand mismatch between northern and western grid. It has now become more common for coastal cities and states to face blackouts during cyclones due to damaged grid infrastructure, questioning grid resilience. During Vardah cyclone, in 2016, the state utility Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) lost 10,000 electric poles and 800 transformers were damaged causing a loss of more than 1,000 crores.
In order to overcome the challenges, the Government has announced programs to improve energy efficiency, reduce emissions and develop grid infrastructure. Initiatives that have been introduced, including UJALA (Unnat Jeevan by Affordable LEDs and Appliances for All), Renewable Energy – 175 GW target by 2020, 24*7 Power for all, Remote village electrification programme, all ensure the nation’s progress towards achievinga cleaner and equitable power supply to all.
With ambitious energy policies and programs on one side and challenges to the grid infrastructure on the other side, GBCI’s Performance Excellence in Electricity Renewal (PEER) program could bridge this gap, ensuring reliable, quality, resilient and safe power to the consumers, thereby improving the nation’s living standard and economy. PEER has the potential to accelerate the transformation of the power and energy market to meet these goals. It establishes global best practices,supports programs in achieving national goals and creates a common language between the electricity consumer, power distribution companies and energy professionals. This policy brief detail show PEER can complement the Government’s work to achieve their target outcomes and holistically support grid modernization in India.
Objective
This policy brief outlines how PEER can jumpstart a sustainable transformation in the power market and support national energy policies and achieve targets.
Overview of India’s energy policies
The Government has introduced several major energy initiatives:
• UJALA – 32 crore LED’s distributed leading to 42000 million units energy savings.
• Renewable Energy target – 175 GW target by 2022 – the country has already installed 40% of the target (72 GW) to date.
• National Smart Grid Mission (NSGM) -an institutional mechanism governing the implementation of smart grid policies and programs with 11 pilots and 5 projects in progress.
• PAT (Performance, Achieve & Trade) scheme – to reduce the specific energy consumption of energy intensive industries. In the third phase of implementation, PAT aims for an overall energy consumption reduction of 1.06 MTOE.
• UDAY scheme – emphasizes the operational improvement of DISCOM’s through deployment of energy efficiency measures. Achieved nearly 100% urban and rural Distribution Transformer metering, 68% feeder segregation to date.
• IPDS (Integrated Power Development Scheme)/R-APDRP (Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme) - focuses on IT enablement of the distribution sector. As of May 20, 2017, 493 projects with an aggregate cost of Rs 25,898 crore have been sanctioned and IT-enablement was taken up by 1,405 R-APDRP towns.
PAT Scheme
India’s intended nationally determined contributions aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 20-25% by 2020 and to increase the share of renewables in installed capacity to up to 40% by the same year.
To achieve this, Bureau of Energy Efficiency launched the PAT scheme - a regulatory instrument to reduce specific energy consumption in energy intensive industries (Designated Consumers – DC).
PEER complementing PAT– through structured framework
PEER can holistically support the identified DC’s of PAT (DISCOM’s, aluminium, cement, chlor-alkali, fertilizer, iron & steel, paper industries, etc) in achieving their energy reduction targets through its structured framework. It helps to:
- Effectively track their energy usage,
- Track emission performance,
- Emphasizing an integrated framework of operational policies to be in place (risk assessment, preventive and predictive approaches, load management); and
- Quantifying the economic, environmental and social benefits
PEER directly compliments PAT through its 34 proven credits,which supports energy intensive industries in achieving their designated targets and helps in improving power system performance.
PEER addressing energy sectors beyond PAT
PEER is a comprehensive program developed to address sustainability, reliability and resiliency of energy infrastructure across cities and utilities (DISCOM’s), campuses (airports, hospitals, IT parks, universities, SEZ, etc.) and transits (railways and metros) thereby addressing various energy sectors going ahead of PAT.Here is a segmentation snapshot of PAT and PEER.
UDAY Scheme
The UDAY scheme was launched to improve the financial and operational efficiencies of the weaker state DISCOM’s.
The UDAY scheme could majorly be referred as a debt restructuring plan for the financially weak DISCOM’s emphasizing on the operational improvements through mandating feeder segregation, transformer up-gradation, compulsory smart meter installation, AT&C loss reduction and deployment of energy efficiency measures.
PEER complimenting UDAY through proven programs & processes
PEER with its integrated approach could drive DISCOM’s towards UDAY targets and further through its proven programs & processes. The performance outcomes could also help Indian DISCOMs in benchmarking across regional and global peers.
A study by Wartsila India in August 2009 indicates that India suffers a staggering loss of INR 100,000 crore due to nationwide power disturbances.
PEER presents a forward-looking driving tool that emphasizes tracking the reliability and environmental performance of DISCOMs through Key Performance Indicators (KPI) like:
- SAIDI and SAIFI– set thresholds on reliability indices (as per IEEE 1366) to measure and benchmark DISCOMs reliability performance.
- EE Index and SEEC coefficient– A rationally devised KPI which quantifies and benchmarks the environmental performance and efficiency of electricity generation across global standards.
- Sets 5% threshold for advanced meter installation with featured capabilities.
- Measuring customer connect of utilities
The above PEER parameters could help DISCOMs in evaluating their current performance and sets thresholds for achieving future improvements.
Benefits of PEER
PEER helps electricity leaders, professionals, operators and energy stakeholders:
- Bring transparency and creating a common language between consumer, utilities, operators and energy stakeholders.
- Define key performance metrics, benchmark to industry standards, and verify measurable outcomes.
- Demonstrate competitive advantage and comparative differentiation.
- Build a comprehensive continuous improvement process based on industry best practices to maximize returns and minimize risks thereby creating trust, credibility, and customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
PEER is administered by Green Business Certification Inc (GBCI), the premier organization independently recognizing excellence in green business industry performance and practice globally. Through PEER, GBCI puts forth a scientific method of power supply performance assessment and visions to transform cities, utilities, campuses and transit systems through its 34 global parameters.
PEER provides direction and identifies new opportunities for improvement of coastal DISCOMs which are frequently prone to storms, floods and other natural disasters. PEER helps reduce vulnerabilities and damage to grid infrastructure as a result of extreme events.
With India witnessing a transformational change in the energy sector through the mandated policies, PEER could drive the above programs at community level & utility scale through its integrated framework and data-driven approach.
Our recommendation to the Government and funding agencies are:
• Utilize PEER to select winners of smart/micro grid demonstration projects and grid infrastructure improvement programs.
• Create a rider to fund microgrid projects or other utility-led projects using PEER.
• Have PEER as a measurement and verification tool in your RFPs that will ease out your selection and implementation process.
By Ms. Mili Majumdar, Managing Director of Green Business Certification Institute Pvt Ltd, India and Senior Vice President, USGBC
@EPC World Media
Case Study
EPB Chattanooga, Tennessee
In 2015, EPB Chattanooga became the first PEER certified municipal utility in the world.
The EPB system was put to the test in 2012, when two major storms knocked out power throughout most of Chattanooga. With electricity infrastructure improvements, power was restored to most of the system within hours instead of days.
As part of the PEER process, EPB identified opportunities for sustained improvement through
- Undergrounding
- Improving the generation mix
- Encouraging ongoing customer engagement
These strategies have helped EPB provide further value to customers, raise awareness of their accomplishments to date and support additional investments.
Based on 2013 data, EPB’s was able to compare its SAIDI of 83.5 outage minutes per year favorably to the state of Tennessee’s average SAIDI of 170 and the national average of 240 minutes projecting its reliability performance.
Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited
In 2018, Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) became the first PEER GOLD certified utility in India.
Through PEER, Tata Power realized the following benefits:
- Helped in quantifying the reliability and environmental performance of their power infrastructure spanning across 510 sq.kms with registered customer base of 1.64 million
- Helped structured data-management across 14 departments
- Assessed their customer engagement programs
- Evaluated their operational policies and programs compared at a global scale
- Encouraged meaningful decisions for future long-term power contracts selection based on PEER EE index
TPDDL was able to uniquely benchmark across four PEER categories – Reliability & Resiliency, Energy efficiency & Environment, Operations, Management & Safetyand Grid Services and helped quantify their performance. They reported energy savings of 26 million units, cost savings of INR 17.7 croreand 450 kilotons carbon emission reduction perannum.
