India’s CO₂ emission pathways to 2050: What role can renewables play?

Highlights

• Renewables can play an important role to decarbonise the Indian energy system.

• Biomass is not a preferred option to generate electricity when there is no CCS available.

• Solar can generate about half of the electricity demand in 2050 in the absent of CCS.

• Renewable can contribute to mitigate up to 63% of the CO₂ reduction in 2050.

Abstract

Renewable energy can play an important role in India’s climate change mitigation, as India has great potential for renewables, especially solar and wind. This paper analyses the role of renewables to meet India’s possible 2050 climate change mitigation targets using a multi-region global energy system model called TIAM-UCL, where India is explicitly represented as a separate region. TIAM-UCL is a cost optimisation model. The climate policy is applied to all regions in the model based on equal per capita emissions of 1.3 tCO₂ by 2050. Analysis shows that renewable energy can play an important role to decarbonise the economy, especially the power sector. Two low-carbon scenarios are explored, the first allowing for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology deployment and the second excluding this technology. In the first low-carbon scenario (LC1), the most critical renewable energy technologies in the power sector are biomass with CCS, solar and wind. In the second low-carbon scenario (LC2), without CCS, there is an even greater role for solar and wind. Over the whole Indian economy, by 2050 renewables contribute 57% of the total CO₂ reductions in LC1 (relative to a reference scenario with no CO₂ target) and 63% of the CO₂ reductions in LC2.

Introduction

India is the world’s fourth largest economy (based on purchasing power parity) and third largest energy consumer, accounting for 5% of global primary energy supply, and responsible for 5% of global CO₂ emissions in 2010 [1]. Its energy consumption and emissions are projected to increase rapidly in the next few decades due to expected growth in population and economic activity [2]. Therefore, emerging economies like India have to undertake deep emissions reductions in order to achieve adequate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation that is needed to keep the world on track towards a 2 °C pathway. Though at present (in 2010) India’s per capita energy consumption (0.59 toe/capita) and per capita emissions (1.39 tCO₂/capita) are lower than that of the world average of 1.86 toe/capita and 4.44 tCO₂/capita respectively [1], the Indian government has recognised the importance of lowering the country’s GHG emissions as part of an international effort to limit global warming. India has stated voluntary targets to reduce its GHG emissions per unit of economic output by 20–25% by 2020 compared to 2005 levels, as part of the Copenhagen Accord [3].

Renewable energy can contribute to global climate change mitigation if it is produced in a sustainable manner. It can play a critical role in decarbonising the Indian economy as India has a large amount of renewable resources such as solar, wind, hydro and biomass. In 2010 the top five countries for non-hydro renewable power capacity were the United States, China, Germany, Spain, and India [4]. India ranks sixth worldwide for total hydro capacity, with an existing capacity of more than 40 GW (including 37.4 GW of large-scale), and it added about 0.3 GW of small-scale hydro in 2010 for a cumulative small-scale hydro capacity of 2.9 GW at year-end; another 0.9 GW of small-scale hydro were under construction as of early 2011 [4].

India is the fifth worldwide in total existing wind power capacity and is rapidly expanding many forms of rural renewables such as biogas and solar PV [4]. Wind power potential in India was initially estimated to be 20 GW and later revised upwards to 65 GW by the Planning Commission of India [5]. According to the Indian wind energy association (INWEA), the on-shore wind potential is 65 GW, and the president of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association has claimed that the total wind potential in the country is 100 GW [6].

India receives solar energy equivalent to over 5000 trillion kW h/year, which is far more than the total energy consumption of the country [7]. India’s production of solar modules increased from 9.5 MW in 1998–1999 to about 40 MW in 2004–2005, corresponding to a 4.2-fold rise in 6 years, which, although impressive, is lower than global growth in solar installed capacity in recent years [6].

Forests defined as woodlands with more than 10% crown cover occupy about 20% of the Indian land area [8]. In India, biomass resources are used for power generation through three general applications, including grid-connected biomass power plants, off-grid distributed biomass power applications, and cogeneration via sugar mills and other industries. India added about 0.3 GW of biomass power capacity in 2010 for a total of 3 GW at year-end [6]. India is one of the largest bio-fuel producers in Asia [9].

Though the above studies discus the potential of renewable sources for India, they were mostly carried out at resource or sector level. These studies did not analyse the cost competitiveness of these renewable resources under climate policy in a holistic manner by integrating supply and demand side. Many studies [6], [7], [8] have also noted that renewable energy sources in India are in abundance, which can fulfil the growing energy demand. The main obstacle to increase the share of renewable energy sources is the relatively high installation cost. However, with the advancement in technology, RES can be tapped in a cost effective and sustainable manner.

This paper analyses what role renewables can play to meet India’s CO₂ emission mitigation pathways to 2050 in a global context using a multi-region global energy system cost optimisation model called TIAM_UCL, where India is represented as a separate region, and where all regions take on equal per capita CO₂ emissions levels by 2050. There are several studies available in the literature using models for energy and climate policy analysis at different levels: at a global level [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], and at national levels [8], [15], [16], [17], [18]. Selection of an appropriate model depends on the research question as well as the type of insights we are interested to bring out from the analysis. For analysis of the implications of possible global climate change mitigation targets on Indian energy systems, the technology rich (bottom-up) multi-region global energy system model (TIAM-UCL) is an appropriate model, as it captures the interaction of the Indian energy system with rest of the world (for example energy resources trade). Further, TIAM-UCL can be used to carry out analysis in a holistic way by integrating supply and demand side of the energy systems.

The paper is divided into five sections. Following the Introduction, Section 2 briefly presents the TIAM-UCL global model and assumptions, Section 3 defines the scenarios modelled in TIAM-UCL for this paper, Section 4 presents the sectoral emissions under two low carbon scenarios and discusses the role of renewables to achieve the mitigation pathways based on the TIAM-UCL results, and finally Section 5 concludes the study.