High on carbon?

Are our policies biased in favour of fossil fuels?

That is the opinion of many experts about India's Integrated Energy Policy which visualised only 5-6 percent contribution of renewables in India's energy mix by 2031. The IEP also made an assumption that renewables would be critical for India's energy independence only beyond 2050, and largely ignored technology leapfrogging in renewables. Above all, it carried the conviction of continued availability of fossil fuels up to 2050.

And now, there is the Low-carbon committee which seems to actually chart a high carbon growth actually!

Titled the 'Report of the Expert committee on low-carbon strategies for inclusive growth in India', it asserts that coal-based power is the cheapest option. It is not. Hydro is. Some errors apart, it totally ignores the NAPCC targets - like the renewable target of 15 percent by 2020. There is no mention of how this can be done, using what technology, etc. So also in its passing remarks on solar, about which it remarks that solar installed capacity could add up to 20,000 MW by 2020, but "such a large capacity may not be required because other sources are able to meet demand at lower cost." There is no attempt to explain.

Even its projections for wind are way below what is expected given present trends(13,000 MW today).

There is no attempt to analyse why the Energy Conservation Act 2001 continues to be largely ignored, nor mention of need to curb growth of private vehicles with concerns of peak oil.

Many nations are aiming at 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, with some aiming at the halfway mark.

Is business-as-usual all that India can offer? Should reneable energy have not figured more prominently on a low-carbon chart?