india

This post was co-authored with Jamshyd Godrej, chairman of Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd and a WRI Board Member. It originally appeared in The Economic Times.

Ministers are gathering in New Delhi today to address an urgent challenge: how to unlock the full potential of clean energy to drive economic growth, expand energy access, and protect the climate. The 4th Clean Energy Ministerial — which brings together energy ministers and other delegates from more than 20 leading economies — is a critical opportunity to inject new life into the global clean energy transition.

While we’ve seen progress on renewable energy, the sector still faces barriers to increase financial support and create strong national policies that will enable it to flourish. First, some good news: The renewable energy market has blossomed in recent years. In just the last decade, global clean energy investment has increased five-fold, from $50 billion a year to more than $250 billion. And more than 100 countries have renewable energy targets in place.

India has set itself on a remarkable journey by ushering in renewable energy growth. The National Action Plan on Climate Change, launched in 2008, aims to have 15 percent of India’s electricity consumption from renewable energy by 2020. Currently, the country produces slightly more than 12 percent of its energy from renewables, putting it on track for that goal. India has been using various policy levers to advance renewable energy, including tax and generation-based incentives, capital subsidies, and feed-in tariffs. The Renewable Portfolio Obligations is also providing support for renewable energy developers. Even so, the country is not yet achieving its full potential — which is critical for the 400 million people who lack access to basic electricity.

Water is a scarce resource in India, especially in the state of Maharashtra, where most rainfall is limited to the monsoon season from June through September. The Government of India has long promoted a Participatory Watershed Development (PWD) approach to deal with this scarcity, focusing on technical and social interventions to restore barren landscapes, boost agricultural production, and improve livelihoods.

The PWD approach is now facing a major challenge: climate change. Over the past dozen years, India has experienced four major droughts. This past year, the state of Maharashtra received only 82 percent of its average monsoon rainfall; some districts received only 25-50 percent of average rainfall. For agrarian villages located in arid and semi-arid regions of Maharashtra, any small reduction in rainfall can compromise agricultural yields, drinking water supplies, and, really, the community’s entire existence. In the face of unabated climate change, reductions in monsoon rainfall are likely to become increasingly common.

But there are solutions. The Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) is one organization that’s exploring ways to safeguard livelihoods in these regions in the face of changing environmental conditions and increasing water shortages.

India recently experienced one of the world’s worst blackouts, with 670 million citizens directly impacted. While media reports have focused on the repercussions from two days of outages, this incident illustrates a much larger, more systemic problem: the need for improved electricity governance.

India’s History of Power Problems

India has the world’s fifth-largest electrical system, with an installed electric capacity of about 206 gigawatts (GW). India initiated power sector reforms in the early 1990s through a range of legal, policy, and regulatory changes. Over the last two decades, some of these reforms have been impressive, but several others weren’t taken. This lack of follow-through has resulted in a growing gap between electricity demand and supply throughout the country. Recent blackouts may have shined a spotlight on this gap, but it’s a situation that’s widespread in India: Not only do 400 million Indians lack access to electricity, but electricity supply is unreliable and of poor quality even in large parts of “electrified” India. In addition to the existing demand, Indian consumers, businesses, and industries seek more electricity to power appliances, processes, and products, further exacerbating the demand-supply gap. By 2035, India’s power demand is expected to more than double.

In looking at the recent blackouts and India’s power supply situation in general, three major governance issues jump out:

This post was co-authored with Matt Kroneberger and originally appeared on The City Fix Blog.

One week ago, with assistance from EMBARQ India, the city of Rajkot, in partnership with Nirmal Foundation, launched the G-Auto service, debuting a new fleet of auto-rickshaws, featuring a unified brand and dial-a-rixa (call-in) service, on July 13. The initial fleet includes 50 auto-rickshaws. The service will scale-up in the coming months and is expected to reach a fleet size of around 500 auto-rickshaws at the end of the first year of operations.

Rajkot, a city of around 1.3 million people in Gujarat State, India, currently has a patchwork collection of auto-rickshaw fleets and companies, with more than 12,000 auto-rickshaws currently operating, many without formal fare structures or employment benefits for drivers. G-Auto service will continue to expand its fleet in the coming months, with support from EMBARQ India and the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC). This partnership, fostered by EMBARQ India, has coalesced over the past eight months to allow for safe and reliable auto-rickshaw service for the people of Rajkot.