Electricity
Strengthening the Resource Adequacy Framework for an RE-Rich Future...
Daljit Singh and Ashwini Chitnis argue that, while the MoP framework is a good starting point, it requires significant modifications to effectively...
Parallel but Intersecting: Why Duplicate Electricity Distribution Networks...
The Electricity Act of 2003 allows multiple power distributors in an area, intended mainly for rural areas. Now private companies are eyeing...
DisCom Billing Losses: Moderate Improvements, but Miles to go...
In this paper, Rajasekhar Devaguptapu examines Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses in detail, breaking the composite AT&C loss figures...
Think Big: Power Distributors Must Drastically Slash Their Billing Losses...
Much of the electricity generated in India goes unpaid for, and this leakage has been a huge financial burden on distribution companies. Well...
Green Electricity Tariffs: Pricing and Other Challenges...
The Ministry of Power has notified a formula for “green tariffs” for large (greater than 100 kW) electricity consumers to encourage green power...
International Experience with Distribution Ownership Options in Developing...
This paper analyses the performance of the electricity distribution sector in developing countries under different ownership models....
We can no Longer Measure Electricity Just by its Energy Value: India’s...
The Economist magazine had a very nice special that talked about another misleading and incomplete measure of energy: the calorie. Science has learned...
Can Discoms Spark a Turnaround?...
Gains have been asymmetric, with excess subsidy receipts and improved billing losses. But they aren’t sufficient. Discoms urgently need regulatory...
A Fine Balance: From Justice to Cost, the Many Competing Objectives of...
India’s per capita consumption is only a little over a third of the world average and, hence, as we strive to become a developed country by 2047,...
Interview | Powering Up: Assessing Utility Preparedness to Meet the Summer...
There is relatively little that can be done in the short run – we cannot build new infrastructure instantly – but our real objective must be to...
PM Surya Ghar Scheme: Balance Consumer Equity with Discom Stability...
Successful implementation of PM Surya Ghar Scheme hinges on ensuring its viability across diverse consumers and discoms through strategic tariff...
Do Electricity Distribution Franchisees Work? It’s High Time for a...
As the energy transition unfolds, the role of the discom is transforming....
Rethinking Franchisee Efficacy in India’s Power Sector: A Critique...
Considering experiences across various states, the paper advises caution in prescribing the IBDF model as a “standard” policy solution for loss...
A Square Peg in a Round Hole...
The regulation of state-owned discoms can create challenges. Upon getting conflicting directives from the government and the regulator, such entities...
Structural Reforms to Improve Regulation of Indian Electricity...
Daljit Singh's working paper examines the regulatory framework of the Indian power sector, often criticised for contributing to the financial strain...
On India’s Electricity Consumption...
Laveesh Bhandari and Aasheerwad Dwivedi study growth in electricity consumption, the key factors affecting it, and its link with economic activity....
Viability of Jharkhand’s Electricity Distribution: Distorted by...
Nikhil Tyagi and Rahul Tongia's paper attempts to examine the structure and legacy of electricity distribution
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Power Sector Needs a Regulatory Overhaul...
Insufficient regulated tariffs are the dominant reasons for discom cash shortfalls. Fixing this is necessary and urgent says Rahul Tongia, Rajasekhar...
Discom Gaps Need Urgent Systemic Fixes...
Non-performance by discoms only explains a minority fraction of cumulative financial gaps of over ₹10L-crore — the real issues are more...
Getting India’s Electricity Prices “Right”: It’s More...
In this paper, Nikhil Tyagi and Rahul Tongia examine the equilibrium of retail pricing, beginning with the question whether prices are in compliance...
Breaking Down the Gap in DisCom Finances: Explaining the Causes of Missing...
Rajasekhar Deveguptapu and Rahul Tongia comprehensively analyse DisCom finances using a long time series that aims to examine and answer pertinent...
Why Electricity Subsidies Need an Urgent Rethink...
Who is deserving of a subsidy is difficult to answer, for this is a policy choice. However, we can benchmark policies by examining who gets how much...
Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2022: Three Features that Will be Very...
The many challenges facing electricity distribution certainly need attention. But focusing on multiple discoms in an area, particularly when an...
For Energy, it’s not RE vs Coal – Adopt a Portfolio Approach...
India is undergoing an energy transition, but it must not write off coal. The most cost-effective way to balance the grid in 2030 will be to keep both...
Follow-up Thoughts on India’s Grid 2030: A Glass Half Cloudy...
India should aggressively go down the RE path, but not focus on just RE. Energy efficiency, smart systems, energy security, local manufacturing,...
A Granular Comparison of International Electricity Prices and Implications...
This paper highlights some of the specificities of other countries and their electricity prices in order
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Policy Revamps that Will Help Scale Storage Technologies...
The key need for improving storage is innovation, which is not just a technical issue but extends to business models and regulatory frameworks. While...
जलवायु बिगड़ने के साथ भारत का...
भारत में जलवायु परिवर्तन के कारण हो रही घटनाओं को अब...
Power Sector must Brace for Trouble as Climate Worsens...
India can no longer label extreme climate events as ‘unforeseeable’. The Union govt must prepare for them with alternate approaches....
Reforming Electricity Distribution in India: Understanding Delicensing and...
The changes being proposed by the government for delicensing distribution and allowing multiple discoms in the same geographical area are unlikely to...
Long-Term Goal-Setting and Planning for Decarbonising the Indian Power...
It is important that the approach used in India for setting and implementation of targets pays attention
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Balancing India’s electricity grid in 2030: A detailed, granular...
India has some of the most aggressive RE targets in the world. How can we offer solutions to balance the electricity grid and osupply and demand? ...
New electricity consumer rules: Reading the impact on ‘rooftop solar’...
The older regime benefited just a handful. The new rules should spur a conversation on equitable and sustainable pricing frameworks...
Need for caution in delicensing distribution...
It would be better to focus on developing effective wholesale electricity markets, which, in turn, require well-functioning fuel markets....
New electricity consumer rules: Reading the impact on ‘rooftop solar’...
The older regime benefited just a handful. The new rules should spur a conversation on equitable and sustainable pricing frameworks...
Enhancing competition in India’s power sector...
Fixing Discoms is a pressing need, but it’s worth investing time in figuring out the details, including expected winners and losers, and...
Coal power plants need an integrated approach...
The three issues — retirement, pollution control, and making plants flexible — are inter-related. They need to be addressed in an integrated...
India’s DisCom stress is more than the sum of its past...
There must be an overhaul of the regulation of electricity firms and their deliverables using common sense metrics...
Reconciling DisCom ‘stimulus’ and dues: We must look beyond the tip of...
DisComs needs support in the coming months, exacerbated by COVID-19, which has hurt revenues more than the reduction in demand. ...
DisComs post-COVID-19: Untangling the historical challenges, needs, and...
COVID has unleashed a relatively unique global pandemic with economic, human, and institutional upheavals that haven’t been seen in generations....
Impact of temperature on electricity demand: Evidence from Delhi and...
Impact of temperature on electricity demand: Evidence from Delhi and Indian states...
India’s power distribution sector: An assesment of financial and...
The Indian power sector value chain can be broadly segmented into generation, transmission, and distribution sectors. At an all-India level, the total...
Understanding India’s Power Capacity: Surplus or not, and for how...
Abstract For the first time, India has sufficient or even surplus electricity generation capacity. Headline numbers show India’s gross...
India 2024: A productive India...
India’s policy default in the energy sector has been a focus on infrastructure addition with the goal of sufficiency. This made sense based on...
Some steps towards escalating the ambition on Universal Electricity Access...
Whether full household electrification is achieved by March 2019 or later, India’s efforts at electrifying its rural population since the turn...
The future of Indian electricity demand: How much, by whom and under what...
Despite the thrust on transforming electricity supply, India’s per capita electricity consumption remains amongst the lowest in the world, with...
Is future planning of electricity grid keeping India’s pace of...
A seminar and discussion at Brookings India recently focused on the impact of electrification on the electricity demand growth and also included...
Making a smart energy grid work for India...
Newspapers are showcasing the dramatically lower costs of solar power, reportedly cheaper than coal power now, and we are told that smart grids (and...
Delhi’s inefficient electricity subsidies...
Who doesn’t like discounts or freebies, especially from the government? Subsidies aren’t inherently wrong they can help keep goods and...
Delhi’s household electricity subsidies: High and inefficient...
Subsidies in the power sector aren’t new or unique to Delhi. These can play a helpful role in keeping power affordable for citizens, but the...
Save me, technology; for I have (energy) sinned...
Many things demand a balance, energy being one of them. Electricity, in fact, must always be in balance as grid power cannot easily be stored....
“Govt’s ambitious power capacity target may lead to huge...
The Economic Times on our latest IMPACT Series paper, ‘India’s Updated (2016) Renewable Energy “Guidelines”: Bold targets,...
A game changer: Electricity feeder monitoring...
The Government of India is proposing a bold and major scheme for monitoring, visualizing, and analyzing feeder level power supply across the nation,...
Planning for Accelerating Smart Meter and Smart Grid Rollouts in India...
The Electricity Policy has taken a bold move to kick-start Smart Meters in India. This discussion note discusses roll-out the options. Many HT...
Average rural consumer ends up subsidizing power for urban residents...
An article in the Scientific American quotes Brookings India Fellow Rahul Tongia’s research. Rural homes regularly experience rolling blackouts...
Rating of Distribution Utilities in India: Linking the Financial with...
In August 2015, the Ministry of Power released the State Distribution Utilities Third Annual Integrated Ratings. This is the third instance of...
Making India’s Electricity Utilities Viable Enterprises: Economics,...
The Indian electricity system is struggling. Worldwide challenges of supply security, fuel choice, environmental impacts (now adding carbon and...
Renewables and the Grid...
Chapter Summary: This chapter discusses renewables integration in the context of the larger electricity system, especially the interconnected grid. ...
The Electricity Future and Synergy: Storage and Smart...
Chapter Summary: This chapter explores the future of the grid as a Smart Grid, in particular how it can synergize with renewable power. This...
Electrified, but without electricity...
No one would believe that simply owning a smartphone would be enough to go online and get connected one would still need a data connection for that to...
Re-thinking Access and Electrification in India: From Wire to Service...
“Electrification” has been a priority for India for many years, and there are ongoing plans and projects to improve access to many more...
Do rural residential electricity consumers cross-subside their urban...
Santosh Harish and Rahul Tongia examine inequities in supply of household electricity in India, using minute-level data for every feeder across a...
Time of day electricity pricing: From utilities to consumers...
What is the value of saving one unit (or kilowatt-hour, kWh) of electricity? Most households would think about their bill, and then try and recall...
Seminar
10
Jan
2025
11:00 AM
-
12:30 PM (IST)
CSEP Auditorium
Seminar
16
Jan
2025
11:00 AM
-
01:00 PM (IST)
CSEP Auditorium
Parallel but Intersecting: Why Duplicate Electricity Distribution Networks Won’t Work
A seminar and discussion at Brookings India recently focused on the impact of electrification on the electricity demand growth and also included insights from global experiences and the possible policy implications for India. Key speaker at this event was Johannes Urpelainen of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Founding Director of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP). Urpelainen discussed insights from global and Indian electrification efforts, with a focus on Asian countries. As of 2016, 80 per cent of India’s population was electrified as compared to 55 per cent in 2001. This growth in electrification was highest […]
The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) is an independent, public policy think tank with a mandate to conduct research and analysis on critical issues facing India and the world and help shape policies that advance sustainable growth and development.