India has made major progress in delivering energy efficiency. It has done better than China, the US, Russia and many European nations

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7.1 aims to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services by 2030. India’s journey so far has been remarkable in achieving near-universal access to electricity in the last one decade. As per the “Saubhagya” dashboard, 99.9 per cent of rural households in the country have been electrified and less than 20,000 homes lacked electricity access as of March 2019, but as per NSS-76, more than six per cent households in rural areas and one per cent in urban areas had no access to electricity till December 2018.

A majority of the States have above 97 per cent access, but larger States such as Uttar Pradesh (UP), Jharkhand and Odisha still lag behind the national average. Rural areas of UP and Jharkhand are most deprived with 80 and 85 per cent access to electricity respectively.

According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4, in 2015-16, Bihar ranked at the bottom of all States with just 60 per cent of its households having access to power. Since then, it has made significant progress in expanding its electricity access to near-universal coverage in the last three years. But despite attaining near-universal electrification for the majority of States, securing continuous and quality supply of power to remote villages and poorest households still remains a big concern.

Compared to electricity access, larger variations can be observed in the access to clean fuel among the States. Meghalaya, West Bengal, and Empowered Action Group (EAG) States, excluding Uttarakhand, still lag in providing universal access to clean cooking fuels, and every second household has no access to it. This significantly low national average poses a core developmental and health challenge. Even Kerala, despite its high living standards, has witnessed glaringly low progress in this aspect. Also, as per NSS-76, there exists a blatant, countrywide rural-urban divide in the access to clean fuel.

On average, the beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) go for only 3.1 LPG cylinder refills in a year. For the year 2019-2020, around 4.14 crore families never opted for a refill of more than three cylinders. Madhya Pradesh, UP and Rajasthan fared the worst in this regard. According to the information given in the Rajya Sabha recently, since the beginning of the new financial year in April till August, around 1.84 crore families refilled their LPG cylinders only once. This information came in even as the Government claimed of providing free cylinders to the poor during the lockdown. Hence, the challenge further remains to not only increase the access to cleaner fuels for households, but to increase the overall consumption per family.

Energy production of all types contributes to about 70 per cent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions across the globe. Energy-related CO2 emissions grew 1.7 per cent in 2018 to reach a historic high of 33.1 gigatons of CO2 globally. It was the highest rate of growth since 2013, and 70 per cent higher than the average increase since 2010. However, the global energy demand in the first quarter of this year declined by 3.8 per cent relative to the first quarter of 2019, resulting in five per cent lower CO2  emissions as well. But this seemingly desirable change, that was mainly caused by the national lockdowns, may not continue for more than a few months.

To sustainably move towards a better future, it is now essential that we cope with our energy needs, giving due consideration to the environment that has been long neglected and continues to be so. The energy transition from conventional to renewable sources is the biggest need of the hour. Owing to this, SDG target 7.2 aims to increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030.

Among the BRICS nations, Brazil has been leading the way in the share of renewable power in its total energy mix, drawing advantage from its high potential of electricity production from wind and solar energy sources. India’s share of renewable energy in its final energy consumption stands at 32.2 per cent as of 2017 and has been suffering a decline for the last many years. Even though India’s share of renewable energy is higher than countries like Russia, the US, China, Japan and Europe, the decline in this share must be controlled. Whereas for countries mentioned above, in order to be able to sustain the share of renewables in their total energy mix, intense efforts for increasing that share must be realised too.

The Energy Statistics 2020 has reported a substantial growth in the renewable energy share in the total installed electricity generation from 13.4 per cent (2015-2016) to 17.7 per cent (2017-2018), owing to significant investments and expansions made in wind and solar power generation. A recent International Energy Agency analysis shows that in 2018, India’s investment in solar energy was greater than in all fossil fuel sources of electricity generation put together. SDG- 7.3 aims to double the global rate of energy efficiency by 2030. Energy intensity indicates the amount of energy needed to produce one unit of the GDP, where a smaller value is always desirable, as it points towards greater energy efficiency.

India has made significant progress in delivering energy efficiency. It has done better than major economies, namely China, the US, Russia and several European countries. It has showcased exemplary performance on this front and achieved an energy intensity level of 4.1 to 5.1 megajoules per US dollar (MJ/$) that is even lower than the global average of 5.4 MJ/$. Energy efficiency and increasing share of renewables are fundamental in achieving several other sustainable development goals. Without accelerated clean energy innovation and transition towards renewables, the  2030 agenda seems far-fetched.

As the nation faces the grim economic impact of the pandemic, energy efficiency offers several opportunities to provide the much-needed boost to the economy in the form of employment generation and so on, although a great deal of uncertainty exists with regard to SDG-7.

(The writers are researchers, International Institute for Population) Sciences, Mumbai)